Odom's Mountain Horse Ranch

The Narragansett Pacer, Continued.

The Narragansett Bay region was natural for the breeding of these fine horses, with plenty of level, well-watered pasture
land, swamp grass that grew the best hay in abundance, and grazing lands separated from corn fields by saltwater
ponds and lagoons. This made for a great advantage over most other regions, and allowed the Colonist to maintain
purity in the breed as well as keeping stock safe from theft or running off.

The major goal of the breeders was always to maintain purity of the breed. As early as 1677, John Hull, Treasurer of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, Master of the Mint and leader of the Pettaquamscut Purchasers, was one of the major players
in the exportation of Narragansett Pacers. He had an elaborate scheme for building a wall across Point Judith Neck,
creating an enclosed area five miles in length and a mile or more in width for the sole purpose of breeding the
Narragansett Pacer. In a letter to Benedict Arnold on April 16, 1677, Hull wrote:

"We, the partners of Pointe Juda Necke, did fence with a good stone wall at the north end thereof to procure a very good
breed of large stallions and fair mares, and that no mungrell breed might come among them, we have a very choice
breed and in a few years might draw of considerable numbers and ships from Barbados." The project continued steadily
for half a century.

The horses were most definitely regal and classy. The best description of the fabled horse exists in the first edition of the
Edinburgh Encyclopedia:

"They have handsome foreheads, the head clean, the neck long, the arms and legs thin and taper. The hindquarters are
narrow and the hocks a little crocked, which is here called sickle hocked, which turns the hind feet out a little. Their
color is generally, though not always, bright sorrel, they are always spirited and carry both head and tail high. What is
remarkable is that they amble with -more speed than most horses trot, and it is difficult to put them into a gallop.
Notwithstanding their facility of ambling, where the ground requires it, as when the roads are rough and stony, they
have a fine, easy, single-footed trot. These circumstances, together with their being very sure-footed, render them the
finest saddle horse in the world, they neither fatigue themselves nor their rider. It is generally to be lamented that this
invaluable breed of horses is now almost lost by being mixed with those breeds imported from England and other parts
of the United States."

Although referred to as having a "singlefooted trot," it is said the pureblood Narragansetts could not trot at all, but
maintained their own pacing gait. The gait was unique in their backbone moved through the air in a straight line, quite
different from the motion of today's "pacers" and horses trained to acquire a pacing gait. it is this movement of the
backbone that distinguishes the Narragansett Pacer from other breeds. The big questions remains, however: Where did
they come from? And, more importantly, where did they go?

There are many theories to what happened to the Narragansett Pacer. The most general and believed comes from J.H.
Waflace, writer and authority on the development of the American horse, who believed careful and selective breeding
resulted in this New England horse
.
Another theory is native Indians had a few mustangs that owned a gait known as an "Indian Walk," and crossed them
with the Colonial livestock. This is hard to believe, however, since at the time Plymouth, Massachusetts and Connecticut
passed laws preventing the selling of horses to natives. Even as late as 1665, it was after considerable debate that a
Plymouth court allowed one such sale to be made to a friendly Indian for purposes of husbandry.

It is apparent our ancestors fully realized the advantage Indians would have if they possessed horses. The Colonists
were completely aware how horses transformed the Indians on the western plains, and they were not going to make that
mistake with Indians on the East Coast. Just as missiles of today made the United States into a world power, and ships
were weapons with which Great Britain won her world empire, so too had horses delivered the New World to Spain,
England and France.

Even another theory was that Deputy Governor Robinson, the founder of Rhode Island, imported a stallion from
Andalusia named Old Snip, and thus is the father of the Narragansett. Many newspaper advertisements at the time read
"Narragansett Snip" or "a clean bred Narragansett horse of true Snip breed."

The theory is plausible, but according to records of 1684 there was no absence of "pacers" in New England, and that was
some nine years before Robinson was born. Many students of this subject believe the breed may have began with
Andalusian stock, but imported w ell before Robinson's time.

Hence another theory rises that Irish Hobbies, possessing a similar natural gait, were involved in the breed. There is no
doubt some of them came to the Colonies during the middle 17th Century, but there iss nothing to prove this theory
since no stud books were kept at the time. But the Irish Hobbies were remarkably the same in size and color, and
possess a natural pacing gait very much like the Narragansett.

If there were careful selection and breeding of these Hobbies (which became extinct in Ireland before the end of the 17th
Century) with stock brought over with the Colonists just after the landing of the Mayflower, the end result might have
very well been the Narragansett Pacer.

Finally, many believe Spanish horses bred on farms in the West Indian Colonies were heavily infiltrated by the
Narragansett Pacer. There are many more similarities than differences among the breeds, but without proper records
this is only another educated theory, albeit a believable one.