The Horse in America: A Practical Treatise on the Various Types Common in ... by John Gilmer Speed

Author:John Gilmer Speed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClure, Phillips & Co.
Published: 1905-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

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complishment of a single private owner be stif-fered to be wasted it will be a pity indeed, as well as a national reproach.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DENMARK, OB K£NTUCKT aADDLE-H(HtSB

The assessed value of horses tabulated by States would make it appear that Kentucl^ horse-flesh was not more precious than in other parts of the Uoion. And yet Kentucky horses have a fame that is not approached by those of any other state. This is due to the fact that in a small section of the state, none but horses of high breeding are reared. A few counties give to the whole state a reputation which, I am afraid, the whole state does not deserve. But in the famous Blue Grass region the noblest horses of several types and kinds have been bred for more than a hundred years. It is distinctively the breeding place in America of the English Thoroughbred, and comparatively few men who have gone into the reproduction of these interesting and fleet animals have refrained sooner of later from buying or renting farms in

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Central Kentucky to cany on their operations. So, also, with the trotters. Indeed, it has been maintained that in this lime stone region, where blue grass is indigenous and where it was found in abundance in the park-like woods bj the early explorers that the very bones of horses that had grazed upon it from infancy were harder, stouter and less sponge-like than those from anywhere else. This much for the virtue of the lime stone nurtured merits of the blue grass.

But the people have had much to do with the excellence of Kentucky horses. They seem to have been by nature interested in the breed of horses from the beginning of their settlement there. One of the first records of the Colonial era is that of a Kentuckian who was killed by an Indian while training a race-horse on a frontier race-course. And among the seven first statutes enacted by the Colony when in preparation to become a state of the Union, was one to regulate the range and improve the breed of horses. They were horse lovers in Kentucky in the beginning as they are ta>day. And to-day there is no crime that is looked upon with more contempt than to mis-

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represent the breeding of a horse. In Kentudty a gentleman may kill another gentleman if his cause be just, and suffer no reproach save that of himself; but if he palter with the pedigree of a horse he trifles with his caste, and is ranked with the sneak thieves and the pickpockets who take their victims unaware, and achieve at once a petty and cowardly advantage. This love of the horse and knowledge of him has gone on from generation to generation until it has become a part, and no inconsiderable part of the heritage of every Kentuckian who considers himself well bom.

Some twenty years ago a Kentucky horse-breeder was in Boston, visiting a gentleman with whom he had business.

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