Narragansett Pacer
James Fenimore Cooper described their conformation as such: "They have handsome foreheads, the head clean, the neck long, the arms and legs thin and tapered."
[3]: 358–9 The English horses which contributed to the Narragansett Pacer may have been members of the Irish Hobby breed;[1]: 18 another possible ancestor is the Galloway pony.
[8] In 1768, George Washington owned and raced a Narragansett Pacer, and Edmund Burke asked an American friend for a pair in 1772.
[5] Scots-Irish judge and Patriot sympathizer[9] George Grant McCurdy of Old Lyme, Connecticut also owned a Narragansett Pacer mare.
[10] The Narragansett Pacer would prove to be immensely popular in the 18th century, and dominated early horse races in Colonial America.
He also notes that "wealthy farmers...were the principal patrons of the sport", and chose Thoroughbreds over Pacers for their popularity and speed, as well as greater winnings.
[11] The second factor in the breed's extinction was that Pacers were sold in large numbers to sugarcane planters in the Caribbean, as well as buyers in Canada, to purchase Thoroughbreds instead, thereby severely diminishing the purebred stock in the United States.
[12]: 250 North Carolina also had breeders of the Pacer, as the breeding stock was brought to the area around 1790 by pioneers,[1]: 246 though Duke notes that Virginia Thoroughbreds were later highly sought-after.
As no formal breed registry or studbook was created to record Narragansett Pacer horses, identifying them is done through cross-referencing historical documents, as well as instances of crossbreeding in early pedigrees.
[3]: 358–9 The Narragansett Pacer played a significant role in the creation of the Morgan, American Saddlebred, the Standardbred, and the Tennessee Walking Horse.
