I notice that at least one of the present saddle gaits was cultivated more than three hundred years ago. Mr. Gervaise Markham, a writer of the sixteenth century, and probably the second English author on the horse, says: “If you buy a horse for pleasure the amble is the best, in which you observe that he moves both his legs on one side together, neat with complete deliberation, for if he treads too short he is apt to stumble, if too large to cut and if shuffling or rowling he does it slovenly and besides rids no ground. If your horse be designed for hunting, a racking pace is most expedient, which little differs from the amble, only is more active and nimble, whereby the horse observes due motion, but you must not force him too eagerly, lest being in confusion he lose all knowledge of what you design him to, and so handle his legs carelessly.” The orthography of the work “rack” as used by Markham is “wrack,” and this is the only place I have met with it in any of the old authors. Webster defines the word “rack” as “a fast amble,” but Markham uses it in contradistinction from the amble. It is worthy of note here that the word “rack” is older than the word “pace,” in its use as designating the particular gait of the horse, and through all the centuries it has been retained. Of all the gaits that are subsidiary to the pace and derived from that gait, the rack is probably the most common, and in many sections of the country the pacer is called a racker. Racking is often designated as “single-footing,” and in this gait as well as in the running walk and fox trot, there are four distinct impacts in the revolution. It follows, then, that they are not susceptible of a very high rate of speed.