Early History.

As early as 1554 in Valkenburg,Holland, the fastest of 3000 horses at a horse fair competed in trotting matches. Holland's most famous trotting event, The Golden Whip, was first run at Soestdijk in 1777. Around that time, Aleksey, Count Orlov began breeding what was later to become a powerful trotting strain in Russia. Out of his stallion Barss he bred the Orlov trotter that became the bedrock of the Russian trotting stock.

The English Norfolk trotter emerged as a breed about 1750. Although it was only a road horse, because of its speed it was used for road racing by its owners, trotting a specified distance within a given time.

In North America too, trotting races first took place in the streets but by the early 19th century Americans had trotting tracks. In 1806, at the Harlem track, New York, Yankee trotted the mile in 2:59. This was cut down to 2:48.5 in 1810 at the Hunting Park track in Philadelphia by an unknown trotting gelding from Boston.

By the middle of the century harness racing was part of the scene at country fairs in the USA and at agricultural shows in Eastern and central Canada. By 1840 trotting was an organised sport in New England and from then on harness racing continued to flourish.

In 1871, the Grand Circuit, previously the Quadrilateral Trotting Combination, was set up and swelled from 4 to 23 tracks. In 1879 the Standardbred horse was established in the USA from the the prepotency of the English Thoroughbred stallion Messenger which was exported to Philadelphia in 1788. As well as siring Thoroughbred runners that became trotting stallions, he contributed to the American Thoroughbred through his grandson American Eclipse. Ten of his colts became leading trotting sires in the early 19th century and his great-grandson Hambletonian 10, foaled in 1849, sired 1331 colts and fillies between 1851 and 1875. His line is so dominant that all American Standardbreds that followed and many trotters worldwide can be traced to him.

The pacer descends from the blood of the Narrangsett pacer, a saddle horse which dissappeared by 1850, and the Canuck of French Canada. Wheras the trotter began in the East of the USA the pacer grew in the Midwest and the South, mainly Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tenessee. The pacer did not attain popularity until the late 19th century.