When we reach the horses of the colonial period, we are in a field that never has been explored and cannot be expected to yield a very rich harvest. Here and there I have been able to pick up a detached paragraph from some contemporaneous writer, and occasionally a record, or an advertisement, from which, in most cases, I have been able to construct a fair and truthful outline and description of the horses of the different colonies, down to the Revolutionary war. The collection of the material has required great patience and great labor, but it has not been an irksome task, for many things have been brought to light of great interest to the student of horse history. The knowledge of the colonial horse in his character and action, that may be gathered from the chapters devoted to his description and history, I flatter myself, will not only be interesting as something new, but will throw a strong light on the lineage of the two-minute trotter and pacer. The colonists of Virginia were subjected for a number of years to great suffering, privation, and want. They were badly selected and many of them were improvident and never trained to habits of industry and thrift. There were quite too many “penniless gentlemen’s sons” among them, who had been sent out with the hope that the change might improve their habits and their morals. They were too proud to work, and when they were driven to it by necessity they didn’t know how. After suffering untold hardships for a succession of years, those that survived learned to adapt themselves to their environment and to make their own way in the world. Their first supply of domestic animals were all consumed as food, embracing horses, cattle, swine, and goats, and everything had thus been consumed except one venerable female swine, as reported by a board of examiners. Their second supply of horses, cattle, swine, and goats was more carefully guarded, and from them in greater part came the countless denizens of the barnyard.