Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/60

52 TURF development here and in Canada began very early in the history of the colonies. The peo- ple of the northern states and of Canada were led to prefer driving to riding. The roads in summer and autumn were comparatively good. In winter the deep snows made sleighing rapid and easy, and a man who would have been frozen on horseback could travel comfortably in a sleigh. In the southern states the case was different. Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas produced blood horses, but no trot- ters. The fact that the early home of the fast trotter was the northern states and Canada shows that his excellence is the result of long use, and the inclination for that gait is now become partly hereditary. When the people of New York, New England, and Canada were driving rapidly and merrily to the music of the sleigh bells, and their horses were com- pelled to bend the knee to get over the snow among the pines, they were creating the pos- sibility of future Flora Temples and Dex- tera. The best mares were selected to breed from, and the best stallion in the neighbor- hood was chosen for them. Races for small sums were made upon the road or upon Hie ice, and finally trotting tracks were established at such places as Boston, New York, and Phila- delphia. Some of the best trotting mares were bred to the sons and grandsons of imported Messenger, and the strains of other blood horses in this country and Canada were also infused. The Arabian horse also entered into the com- position of the trotter. The form best adapt- ed for speed in horses was thus approached, and the nervous organization and clear wind which enable the horse to stay over a long distance of ground were acquired. Upon the nervous organization depends the great differ- ence often found to exist between horses equal- ly well bred and apparently equally well shaped. In the early days of the trotting turf most of the races were under the saddle. There were also many of two-, three-, and four-mile heats. After some time races in harness became more frequent, and those of three- and four-mile heats less so. The sulkies and skeleton wagons employed in the races were improved in con- struction and made lighter and truer. The tracks were laid out upon proper principles, and better cared for. The horses, regularly trained, and with the improved vehicles and tracks, displayed more and more speed, until Flora Temple finally beat 2 min. 20 sec. in har- ness. Even after that time races of two-mile heats and wagon races were common ; but they have now almost wholly ceased. Associations make all the races mile heats, three in five, in harness. About the last of the great two- mile-heat races and wagon races were those in which Dexter defeated Lady Thorn in 1866. It is to be regretted that all the trotting races should now be of one pattern. People have largely lost sight of the main things involved in the issue of a race, and care only for time by the watch, which is in truth the least impor- TURGENEFF tant element in the matter. Some horses have beaten the best time made by other horses with whom they would have stood very little chance in a race together. The time test does more than justice to the horse tried by it, and less than justice to the horses of past years. All the improvements in tracks, vehicles, and mode of handling go to the aid of the latest comer. There is hardly a track in the country now so slow as that of Buffalo was when Dex- ter made his best recorded time, or so slow as the Fashion course was when he made his faster actual time. The new courses are very much faster, though they are of the right length measured three feet from the pole. The best recorded time for a mile in harness is now 2 min. 14 sec. made in a trial for time by Goldsmith Maid, in which she had no opponent. The fast trotter is not usually as tall as the running race horse, and many of the best have been rather under-sized. Flora Temple was not much more than 14 hands high ; Ethan Allen is not 15 ; Goldsmith Maid is 15 and half an inch ; Dexter is 15 and an inch. But George M. Patchen and Lady Thorn were 16 hands high, and Gloster, a famous fast horse that died in 1874 at San Francisco, was nearly 17 hands high. The Orloff trotter of Russia was a cross-bred horse when Count Or- loff first exhibited him. It is believed to be now established as a breed, measurably capa- ble of reproducing without reverting to the peculiar points of the original ancestors. The count at first made use of Arabian horses and of mares from Norway and Holland. The trotting habit was no doubt inherited from the mares, and improved by training. Afterward another Arab cross was employed, and one with the English thoroughbred horse. The speed of some of the Orloff trotters is good, and from their pictures they must possess a large amount of good blood. TURGEVEFF. I. Atexel, a Russian historian, born in 1785, died in Moscow in December, 1845. He was early engaged in collecting materials in foreign countries relating to the ancient history of Russia, and his researches resulted in the publication of Historic Rustics Monumenta, under the auspices of an archaeo- logical government commission (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1841 -'2; supplement, 1848). His letters to his brother were published in Leip- sic (1872.) II. Nikolai, a Russian author, bro- ther of the preceding, born in 1790, died in Paris in November, 1871. He studied in Got- tingen, and after being employed in the civil service at St. Petersburg he was appointed in 1813 Russian commissary, in conjunction with the Prussian statesman Baron Stein, in provi- sional charge of the German provinces recov- ered from France. After returning to Russia he rose to be deputy secretary of the interior and agriculture, and became much interested in the emancipation of the serfs. This in- volved him in the revolutionary outbreak of 1825, and he was sentenced to death, but os-