Early in this century the American Saddle Horse, the real saddle horse of all time, past and present, began to vanish from sight. Improved roads and wheeled vehicles superseded him, in great measure, long before the days of railroads. For business and travel he was the sole dependence of our forefathers for two hundred years, and in point of health it is a great misfortune that he has gone so completely out of use. The horse that cannot take the “saddle gaits” and carry his rider without discomfort or fatigue is not a saddle horse. Springing up and down at every revolution of the horse is not riding for pleasure, but to avoid punishment and a torpid liver. In the chapter devoted to his description, origin, and breeding, it will be clearly shown that he is indebted to his pacing ancestry of the past centuries for his saddle gaits. As the mere matter of great speed cuts no figure in the qualifications of a saddle horse there is a wide field here for the production of style and beauty in the breeder’s art. The aims of a goodly number of intelligent breeders are now moving in this direction, and with the foundations so well laid as they now are, we can look forward to a grand superstructure. As the breeder of speed at the trot goes to the horse that can do it himself, and as the breeder of speed at the gallop goes to the horse that can beat all the others, so the breeder of the saddler will go to the handsomest and best of all his tribe, and when we reach the horse that is perfect in symmetry, style, quality, and disposition, he will be a saddle horse and no questions will be asked about what particular combinations of blood he may possess. He will be strictly eclectic, with the one exception of the inheritance of gait, and he will be the result of wise choosing in his size and structure, and of skillful handling in his disposition and manners.