After more than a hundred years of faithful service, of great popularity, and of profitable returns to their breeders, the little Narragansetts began to disappear, just as their ancestors had disappeared a century earlier. Rhode Island was no longer a frontier settlement, but had grown into a rich and prosperous State. Mere bridle paths through the woods had developed into broad, smooth highways, and wheeled vehicles had taken the place of the saddle. Under these changed conditions, the little pacer was no longer desirable or even tolerable as a harness horse, and he was supplanted by a larger and more stylish type of horse, better suited to the particular kind of work required of him. This was simply the “survival of the fittest,” considering the nature of the services required of the animal. The average height of the Narragansett was not over fourteen hands and one inch. His neck was not long, even for his size; he dropped rapidly on the croup, and his carriage was low, with nothing of elegance or style in his appearance. His mane and tail were heavy, his hind legs were crooked, his limbs and feet were of the very best, but aside from his great speed and the smoothness of his movements under the saddle, there was nothing very desirable or attractive about him. In a contest with a type of the harness horse, at least one hand higher, of high carriage and elegant appearance, there could only be one result, and that soon decided. As in England, so in this country, the blood of the running horse soon worked the extermination of the pacer; not because it was stronger in reproducing itself, perhaps, but because it had the skill and fancy of the breeder enlisted in selecting and mating so as to make the expunging process complete. Only a few years ago a pacing horse could hardly be found in any of the older settled portions of the country, especially where running blood had become fashionable. He was literally banished to the frontiers of Canada, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and especially in the latter two States, where his blood is still appreciated and preserved for the luxurious saddle gaits which it alone transmits. In many individual cases he has shown wonderful power in meeting and overcoming antagonistic elements, but with the tide of running blood all against him, it was only a question of time as to how soon he would be totally submerged. It is only a quarter of a century ago that the first volume of “Wallace’s American Trotting Register” was published, and then began the great task of bringing order out of chaos. In a historical introduction to that work, I inserted the following: