Whence began this speed--in the English runner, in the American trotter and pacer? Traced back, the sheiks of the desert might tell; they who worshipped the midnight stars, or chased on steeds of fire the wild antelope of the plains, before Abraham came from “Ur of the Chaldees.” Knowing the past now from the present, seeing it so clearly through the glasses of twentieth century science, knowing the laws of the “survival of the fittest,” that land and air and sand and sun make both the physical man as well as the physical horse, we can easily guess what centuries of wild gallops across the desert will do for the horse, supplemented by that natural love of him in his master--that love which brings care and kindness and the exercise of common sense in mating and maternity. As to the American horse, there are two distinct classes, based on their respective gaits--the trotter and the pacer. In another chapter these respective gaits are fully discussed, their difference shown, their origin and the speed attained by each. This brief history will deal only with the pacing gait, but so closely are these two great gaits related, and so often do the blood lines of trotter and pacer run in parallel columns that it is necessary for a clear explanation of the subject to say a foreword about the trotter, that grand type of beauty, speed and utility, so purely American and so superbly great that the very mention of his name should excite a patriotic glow in the bosom of every American who loves his country and her just fame.