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The History Of Hobbles & Pacing Races

© Kimberly Rinker

Hobbles, wore by most of modern-day pacers, were first used in England over 300 years ago to gait saddle horses to the pace. When carriages appeared under the late Tudors and early Stuart Kings, the pacing-rigged saddle horses disappeared.

In North America, non-hobbled pacers were quite common prior to the American Revolution, and were so mainstream amongst horsemen that in 1747 in Maryland, those governments passed laws to prohibit pacing races. New Jersey followed suit in 1748 and Pennsylvania did the same in 1750.

In the newly-formed states the Narragansett pacers of Rhode Island were considered an equine elite, and as a result they became an important trade item between the colonies on the Atlantic Coast. In fact, a number of them were shipped to Cuba, where the Spainards laneded, bringing some of the first horses to the New World. The American Pacer at this time then disappeared as soon as roads were opened and coaches quickly took the place of most saddle horses. Very little was heard from them until 1818, when a horse named Boston Blue took a record of three minutes for a mile.

William Edwards of Cleveland, Ohio was one of the first people in America to advocate pacing races, sans hobbles. He induced members of the Grand Circuit to have one pace at each of their meetings. After a few disastrous experiences, he notified the owners of pacers that if their horses did not perform consistently, that style of racing would be cut out entirely.

During this time a rather famous whiel gelding named Argyle was known as the worst of the free-legged pacing offenders. He would win a heat, then win another, and when it looked as though he had the third heat won, he would make a standstill break and be distanced. At that time no one could tell if the horse or driver was at fault, however.

In the 1880's a conductor on an Indiana railroad was training a pacer which had a breaking problem. He decided to tie his horse's legs together to keep him gaited. This first "hobble" was rather crude, but it worked, and soon the craze swept like widlefire throughout harness racing venues. Later, a harness maker was consulted, and it was only a few weeks before hobbles as we know them today were hung on pacers as routine.

Coleridge and Ben D. were the first pair of fast horses that wore hobbles during a Grand Circuit event in 1895. Coleridge defeated Ben D. in a five-heat race in Detroit that year, and the success of this pair prompted skeptics to accept hobbles as a viable piece of equipment. One trainer at the time was quoted as saying "Hobbles make anybody a trainer, and they will result in many incompetent men being seen in the sulky."

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