chapter I will give an exhaustive review of the many troubles in which

these two fillies by Turf seem to be involved.

Messenger was by Mambrino, he by Engineer, he by Sampson, he by Blaze, he by Flying Childers, and he by the Darley Arabian. We give the right male line here for the reason that there can be no doubt as to the accuracy of this line, for it has been preserved in contemporaneous racing records. The trouble, where any trouble exists, is all with the dams of these horses which at best are only matters of the most uncertain tradition. A writer in the Edinburgh _Review_ for July, 1864, covers the whole ground when he says: “The early pedigrees (in the Stud Book) are but little to be relied upon, as they seem for the most part to have been taken from traditional accounts in the stable, from descriptions at the back of old pictures, and from advertisements, none of which had to pass muster at the Herald’s College.” This is in full accordance with our American experiences and it is entirely safe to say that the great body of our old American pedigrees, especially in their remote extensions, are more or less fictitious. The industry of producing great pedigrees out of little or nothing has long been pursued on both sides of the water, and it would be very difficult to determine which side had the better of it.

Before attempting to analyze the pedigree of Messenger, or rather that of his dam, with which the chief difficulty lies, we will go back to the head of the male line and consider each successive generation. The Darley Arabian, one of the most distinguished of all the founders of the English thoroughbred horse, was brought from Aleppo, about the year 1710. He did not cover many mares except those of his owner in Yorkshire, but he was very successful. Childers, commonly called Flying Childers, was foaled 1715. He was got by the Darley Arabian out of Betty Leeds, a distinguished lightweight runner, by Careless. Childers was the most distinguished race horse of his day, and the fabulous story of his having run a mile in a minute was circulated, believed and written about for generations. He ran a trial against Almanzor and Brown Betty over the round course at Newmarket (three miles, six furlongs and ninety-three yards) in six minutes and forty seconds, “and it was thought,” says the old record, “that he moved eighty-two feet and a half in a second of time, which is nearly at the rate of one mile in a minute.” This was the basis of the legend “A Mile in a Minute,” and it has lived till our own day, just as many a traditional pedigree has lived. If we accept the time as given by the old chroniclers, of which we have very grave doubts, Childers ran at the rate of one minute and forty-five seconds to the mile, and he covered a distance of fifty feet and about two inches to the second of time. The pedigree of Childers on the maternal side is one of the oldest in the Stud Book, and we are not aware that any charges have ever been made against its substantial authenticity.

BLAZE, the son of Childers, was foaled 1733, and was out of a mare known as “The Confederate Filly,” by Grey Grantham; her dam was by the Duke of Rutland’s Black Barb, and her grandam was a mare of unknown breeding, called “Bright’s Roan.” Here the maternal line runs into the woods, but this is not the only defect in the pedigree, for the dam of Grey Grantham was also unknown. In order to give a clear idea of just how Blaze was bred, taking the Stud Book for our authority, we will here tabulate the pedigree for a few crosses.

{ Darley Arabian { Childers { { Careless. { { Betty Leeds { Sister to Leeds. Blaze { (1733). { { Browlow Turk. { { Grey Grantham { Blood unknown. { Confederate Filly { { Daughter of { Black Barb. { Brights Roan, unknown.

Certainly this horse cannot be ranked as thoroughbred under any rule, English or American, that has ever been formulated. Only three generations away we find two animals of hopelessly unknown breeding. Mr. Henry F. Euren, compiler of the English Hackney Stud Book, has given Blaze a new place in horse genealogy, and this new place affects the American trotter, remotely, outside of the line through Messenger. Mr. Lawrence, the best English authority on horse matters in the latter part of the last and the beginning of the present century, had maintained, confessedly on tradition only, that Old Shales, the great fountain head of the English trotters of a hundred years ago, was a son of Blank, by Godolphin Arabian. On this point Mr. Euren has got farther back and found earlier evidence in printed form that Blaze and not Blank was the sire of Old Shales. We combated this claim for a time, but in the introduction to his Stud Book he has made out a very good case, and we have hardly a doubt but that he is correct. In speaking of the breeding of Shales, and of his dam being a “strong common-bred mare,” he says: “It is of interest to examine the pedigree of the sire (Blaze) to determine whether yet stronger racing or pacing elements existed on that side.” After giving a tabulation of the pedigree he continues: “There would thus appear to have been a large proportion of English (native) blood in the dam of Blaze, though no one can say what was its character—whether running, trotting, or ambling.” In referring to the fact that Bellfounder was a descendant of Old Shales, the son of Blaze, Mr. Euren makes this practical application of the incident:

“The fact that in the seventh generation from Blaze, on each side, the reunion of the blood in Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, the sire of so many fast American trotting horses, should have proved to be of the most impressive character, would appear to warrant the conclusion that there was a strong latent trotting tendency in the near ancestors, on one, if not on both, sides of Blaze.”

These two points from a very high English authority—that Blaze was not thoroughbred and that he was the sire of Shales, a great trotting progenitor, must have due weight in reaching sound conclusions.

SAMPSON, the son of Blaze, was foaled 1745, and he has occupied a very prominent and at the same time unique place in running-horse history. He was not only a great race horse, at heavy weights, but he was considered phenomenal in his size and strength, and in his lack of the appearance of a race horse. Some of his measurements have come down to us, and as they are reliable data as to what was considered a remarkably large and strong race horse a hundred and forty years ago, we will reproduce them here in order that the curious may compare them with the average race horse of this generation:

Height on the withers, 15 hands 2 inches; dimensions of fore leg from the hair of the hoof to middle of fetlock joint, 4 inches; from fetlock joint to bend of the knee, 11 inches; from bend of knee to elbow, 19 inches; round fore leg below knee, narrowest part, 8½ inches; round hind leg, narrowest part, 9 inches.

These measurements may not seem to merit any particular attention at this day, but a hundred and fifty years ago they were considered phenomenal in the race horse. But we are not left to the dry details of a certain number of inches and fractions of an inch upon which to base a just conception of the strength and substance of this horse. A number of historians have told us of the merriment among the grooms and jockeys when Sampson made his first appearance on the turf. The question was, “Has Mr. Robinson brought a coach horse here to run for the plate?” The laugh was on the other side at Malton that day, however, when the “coach horse,” carrying one hundred and forty pounds, won the plate in three heats. The distance was three miles, and Sampson was then five years old. At long distances and at high weights Sampson was a first-class race horse for his day. But, notwithstanding all this, we are told that his blood never became fashionable, for there was a widespread conviction that he was not running-bred on the side of his dam. The historians tell us that he transmitted his own coarseness and lack of the true running type in a marked degree, which was very evident in his grandson, Mambrino.

His pedigree has been questioned from the day of his first appearance to the present time, and we have made a very careful study of all the facts at our command. In the first edition of his Stud Book (1803) Mr. Weatherby gives his dam as by Hip; g. d. by Spark, son of Honeycomb Punch; g. g. d. by Snake and out of Lord D’Arcy’s Queen. This has not been materially changed in any of the subsequent editions, and we think it may be taken for granted that the horse was advertised under this pedigree. Mr. Weatherby commenced work on pedigrees in 1791, and avowedly accepted the best information he could get with regard to old pedigrees, regardless of the source. We are not aware that he ever investigated anything outside of his office work, or if he did he never gave the public the benefit of the details of his investigations. John Lawrence commenced work on horse history long before Mr. Weatherby commenced as a compiler of pedigrees, and he was altogether the ablest writer of his day, or perhaps we might add, of any other day. He was a clear and independent thinker and a vigorous writer. In his “History of the Horse in all His Varieties and Uses,” on page 281, he thus discusses the question of Sampson’s pedigree:

“Nobody yet ever did, or ever could assert positively that Jigg was not thoroughbred, but the case is very different with respect to Sampson; since nobody in the sporting world, either of past or present days, ever supposed him so. Nor was the said world at all surprised at Robinson’s people furnishing their stallion with a good and _true_ pedigree, a thing so much to their advantage. Having seen a number of Sampson’s immediate get, those in the Lord Marquis of Rockingham’s stud and others, and all of them, Bay Malton perhaps less than any other, in their _heads_, size and form, having the appearance of being a degree or two deficient in racing blood, I was convinced that the then universal opinion on that point was well grounded. I was (in 1778) an enthusiast, collecting materials for a book on the horse. It happened that I wanted a trusty and steady man for a particular service, and opportunely for the matter now under discussion, a Yorkshire man about threescore years of age was recommended to me, who had recently been employed in certain stables. I soon found that his early life had been spent in the running stables of the North, and that he had known Sampson, whence he was always afterward named by us ‘Old Sampson.’ He was very intelligent on the subject of racing stock and his report was as follows. He took the mare to Blaze, for the cover which produced Sampson, helped to bit and break the colt, rode him in exercise and afterward took him to Malton for his first start, where, before the race, he was ridiculed for bringing a great coach horse to contend against racers. On the sale of Sampson this man left the service of James Preston, Esq., and went with the colt into that of Mr. Robinson. His account of Sampson’s dam was that she appeared about three parts bred, a hunting figure and by report a daughter of Hip, which, however, could not be authenticated; and the fact was then notorious and not disputed in the Yorkshire stables.... Mr. Tattersall lately stowed me a portrait of Sampson in his flesh, in which this defect of blood appears far more obvious than in one which I had of him galloping.”

Again, in his great quarto work, issued 1809, Mr. Lawrence reiterates his belief that Sampson was not thoroughbred. He says:

“I am by no means disposed to retract my opinion concerning Robinson’s Sampson. Not only did the account of the groom appear to me to be entitled to credit, but the internal evidence of the horse’s having had in him a cross of common blood is sufficiently strong by the appearance both of the horse himself and of his stock; an idea in which every sportsman, I believe, who remembers Engineer, Mambrino and others will agree with me.”

Here then, we have the answer to the whole inquiry reduced to its simplest form. The groom who coupled the mare with Blaze from which came Sampson says the mare was called a Hip mare, but that her pedigree was really unknown. For the intelligence and honesty of this groom Mr. Lawrence does not hesitate to vouch, and he adds the common belief of all the Yorkshire sportsmen of that day, who knew the mare, that she was of unknown breeding. This evidence is further supplemented by the family characteristics of the stock descended from Sampson, to say nothing of the great lack of “blood” in the appearance of Sampson himself. As against this we have the dry, unsupported assertion of Mr. Weatherby, forty years after the event, and probably copied from an advertisement of the horse. In view of all this we must tabulate the pedigree of Sampson as follows:

{ Childers { Darley Arabian. { { Betty Leeds. { Blaze { Sampson { { Confederate Filly { Grey Grantham. (1745). { { D. of Black Barb. { Called a Hip Mare { (Unknown).

ENGINEER, son of Sampson, was a brown horse, foaled 1755, and was out of Miner’s dam, by Young Greyhound; grandam by Curwen’s Bay Barb, and the next dam unknown. This is all the pedigree that has ever been even claimed for this horse, and it falls far short of the rank of thoroughbred. That the eye may take it all in at a glance we will here put it into tabular form. There is a discrepancy of one year between Weatherby and Pick in the age of the horse, and we find Pick is right in giving his date as 1755.

{ Blaze { Childers. { Sampson { { Confederate Filly. Engineer { { Unknown. (1755). { { Miner’s dam { Young Greyhound { Greyhound. { { Pet mare. { { D. of Bay Barb { Unknown.

Notwithstanding the absence of Eastern blood, Engineer was a race horse of above average ability, although not so good as another son of Sampson called Bay Malton. A few of his sons aside from Mambrino ran respectably, and his daughters were, at one time, highly prized as brood mares.

MAMBRINO, the son of Engineer, was a great strong-boned grey horse, bred by John Atkinson near Leeds in Yorkshire, and was foaled 1768. His dam was by Cade, son of the Godolphin Arabian; g. d. by Bolton Little John; g. g. d. Favorite by a son of Bald Galloway, etc. The Cade mare produced Dulcine, a noted performer, and the mare Favorite was a distinguished performer herself. The poverty of this pedigree is all on the side of the sire, as will be seen by a brief tabulation.

{ Blaze. { Engineer { Sampson { Unknown. { { { { { Young Greyhound. Mambrino { { Miner’s dam { D. of Bay Barb. (1768). { { { Godolphin Arabian. { { Cade { Roxana. { Daughter of { { { Bolton Little John. { Daughter of { Favorite.

It is worthy of note here, as a curious fact, that Mambrino had two pacing crosses. Roxana, the dam of Cade, was by Bald Galloway and Favorite was by a son of Bald Galloway. This horse Bald Galloway was a distinguished representative of the famous old tribe of pacers known as the “Galloways,” from the province of Galloway in Southwestern Scotland.

Mambrino was not put upon the turf till he was five years old, and he proved himself a great race horse in the best company and for the largest class of stakes. He was on the turf most of the time for five or six years and until he was beaten by Woodpecker in 1779, in which race he broke down. He was beaten, but four times, and paid four forfeits. He went into the stud in the spring of 1777, although he ran after that, at 10gs. 10s. 6d. to cover thirty mares besides those of his owners. In 1779 he was again in the stud, in Cambridgeshire as before, at the same price; 1781 he covered at 50gs. 10. 6d.; 1784 at 15gs. 10. 6d.; 1785 at 25gs. 10s. 6d.; 1786 he dropped back to 15gs. 10s. 6d.

We give these prices to show the variations in the estimated value of his services. As a sire of race horses Mambrino was not successful. Some fifteen or twenty of his progeny ran more or less respectably, but none of them was at all comparable with himself. While he was a comparative failure as a racing sire there was another qualification in which he attained great eminence and distinction. In the second volume of Pick’s Turf Register, published 1805, on page 266, we find the following paragraph appended to the history there given of this horse:

“Mambrino was likewise sire of a great many excellent hunters and strong, useful road horses. And it has been said that from his blood the breed of horses for the coach was brought nearly to perfection.”

This paragraph, considering its date (1805), the authority from which it comes, and the peculiar circumstances which prompted its utterance, has a most striking significance. After years of familiarity with Mr. Pick’s works we can say freely that we never have been able to find any allusion or reference to the qualities of any horse portrayed by him other than his running qualities. This reference to the adaptabilities of the progeny of Mambrino stands alone. The “blood that brought the breed of coach horses nearly to perfection” must have been blood that gave the “breed” a long, slinging, road-devouring trot, as well as size and strength. The very same qualifications were observed and noted in the descendants of Mambrino in this country forty and fifty years ago, and at no time in our history have we had such unapproachable coach horses as the great-grandsons of Mambrino. What has been said, therefore, by Mr. Pick of the “coach-horse” qualities of the descendants of Mambrino in England has been fully realized and verified in his descendants, through Messenger, in this country.

The question here arises whether Mambrino ever showed any remarkable trotting action himself that would seem to justify this estimate of the trotting action of his descendants? Several writers, and among them Mr. Lawrence, have spoken of this peculiarity of Mambrino’s incidentally, but the most tangible account we have of it is furnished by an English writer to the _Sporting Magazine_, who dates his letter from the “Subscription Rooms, Tattersall’s, 1814.” These “subscription rooms” were the very focus of sporting events, and this writer seems to be unusually intelligent on this class of subjects. The object and point of his communication is to prove that no thoroughbred horse could be developed into a fast trotter. “Hence,” he says, “no thoroughbred was ever known capable of trotting sixteen miles within the hour, and only one stands on record as having trotted fifteen miles within one hour. That was Infidel, by Turk, who performed it in the North, carrying nine or ten stone. Several race horses have been supposed capable of trotting fourteen miles in one hour, and it is reported that the late Lord Grosvenor once offered to match Mambrino to do it for a thousand guineas.” Now this writer does not say that Lord Grosvenor really made such an offer, but only that he was “reported” to have made it. This does not prove that the offer was formally made, but it does prove that Mambrino had a very remarkable trotting step or such a topic would not have been considered at Tattersall’s subscription rooms. As this writer seems to refer to Mambrino and Infidel only as exceptional horses for their trotting step among thoroughbreds, we may take it for granted that Mambrino was considered exceptional, in his day. It is not probable that he was ever trained an hour at the trot, and we must conclude, therefore, that whatever speed he showed was his natural and undeveloped gait. It will be observed that Mr. Pick’s paragraph was dated 1805, and the letter from the “subscription rooms” 1814, so that they could not have been mere reflections of theories advanced on this side of the Atlantic in relation to Messenger being a great source of trotting speed. These two facts were on record long before any “Messenger theories” were in existence, and those “theories” were formulated long before these two facts were known. The conclusions reached on both sides of the water are entirely harmonious, but they were reached in complete independence of each other.

MESSENGER, son of Mambrino, was a grey horse about fifteen hands two inches high, with strong, heavy bone and a generally coarse appearance for a horse represented to be thoroughbred. From the Racing Calendar, and not from the Stud Book, we learn that he was foaled 1780, and came out of a mare represented to be by Turf, and she out of a mare by Regulus, son of Godolphin Arabian, etc., as represented by Mr. Weatherby in his Stud Book. By looking back to the beginning of this chapter the form in which the entry appears in the Stud Book will be fully comprehended. The identity, history, and breeding of the dam of Messenger is the central point in this inquiry, and we must do our work carefully and thoroughly. From the form of the entry in the Stud Book, it will be understood that the breeder of each animal is supposed to appear opposite the foals of his own breeding, but this we have found in more than a thousand instances to be wholly imaginary on the part of the compiler. If the animal ran, the name of the party running him is far more apt to appear than the name of the breeder. It will be observed, also, that the Turf fillies of 1773 and 1774 appear without their color being known. These fillies seem to be put in there to partially fill the gap between 1771 and 1777. Mr. Pick says the dam of Messenger was black, but he gives no account of her further than that. Whether Mr. Pick was indebted to Mr. Weatherby, or Weatherby to Pick, I cannot say, but they both give the pedigree just as we have given it in this country. I am not inquiring whether these authorities agree on this pedigree, but whether they knew anything about it, and whether there is such agreement in details between them as will support each other.

The first question that arises in every man’s mind is, whether there is any further trace of this Turf mare, the reputed dam of Messenger, in the Stud Book, by whom was she bred and owned, and by whom was Messenger bred? Pick says the Turf mare was bred by Lord Bolingbroke, and Weatherby says she was bred by Lord Grosvenor. To test the question whether either is right, I have gone through the English Stud Book, page by page, and pedigree by pedigree, wherever I found the name of Lord Bolingbroke, or Lord Grosvenor, to see if any trace of the Turf mare could be found. I found no shadow of trace. The certificate of pedigree that came across the ocean with Messenger represents him to have been bred by John Pratt, and Mr. Pick, or rather his successor, Mr. Johnson, says he was bred and owned by Mr. Bullock. These clear and explicit declarations gave new hopes of finding something of the Turf mare, and at it I went again, and searched every pedigree that had the name of Mr. Pratt or Mr. Bullock attached to it, with no better results than before. Now, Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Grosvenor, Mr. Pratt and Mr. Bullock were all breeders, and if any of them ever owned the dam of Messenger and bred from her, none of her produce was ever recorded or ever started in a race.

Thus, the more we search for the truth about Messenger and his origin, the more dense becomes the mystery. When we find an English authority that seems clear, we find another that contradicts him, and probably neither of them knows anything about it beyond uncertain tradition. When we consider these contradictions of authorities in connection with the fact that men were just as prone to lie and fix up a bogus pedigree a hundred years ago as they are to-day, and that stud-book makers were just as liable to be deceived then as now, we must conclude that there is room for very serious doubts as to whether Weatherby or Pick knew anything about the pedigree of Messenger, or by whom he was bred.

In pushing our inquiries still further in search of this mare, we must consider somewhat in detail Mr. Weatherby’s methods and the degree of responsibility he assumed for the accuracy of his compilations. In 1791 he published what he called “An Introduction to a General Stud Book,” containing, as he says, “a small collection of pedigrees which he had extracted from racing calendars and sale papers, and arranged on a new plan.” In May, 1800, he issued a supplement to his “Introduction” bringing down the produce of mares to 1799. In 1803 he issued what we suppose is the first edition of the first volume of the Stud Book. The title-page reads, “The General Stud Book, containing pedigrees of race horses, etc., from the Restoration to the present time.” The imprint is, “Printed for James Weatherby, 7 Oxenden Street, etc., London, 1803.” The volume contains three hundred and eighty-four pages, while the edition of 1827 contains four hundred and forty-eight pages. There is no “Volume I.” on the title-page, nor is there any indication that this is a continuation or revision of any preceding work. It brings down the list of produce in many cases to and including 1803, but none later than that year, so there can be no mistake as to when it was issued.

I have been thus particular in identifying this first edition of the first volume of the English Stud Book, for it gives us an insight into the methods employed by Mr. Weatherby in the progress of his work. Upon a careful comparison of the editions of 1803 with 1827 extending through the letters A, B, and M, we find that he has thrown out more than ten per cent. of the entire families in the edition of 1803. By “entire families” I mean brood mares, with their lists of produce. In making these exclusions he seems to have confined himself to what may be considered the historic period, at that day, and did not go back further than about twenty years. Beyond that period everything was traditional, and he appears to have shrunk from all responsibility of attempting the exclusion of families. On and near the border line between these periods he seems to have taken the responsibility of cutting off a great many individuals of doubtful identity, even though the family was left to stand on its uncertain basis of tradition. I cannot say positively that the dam of Messenger and her sister were cut off with the multitude of others, but I can say that neither of them ever appeared again in the Stud Book. Other members of the family of the Regulus mare have places for their descendants in subsequent volumes, from which I would infer that Mr. Weatherby considered her breeding all right, but the two fillies, one of them the dam of Messenger, have been treated as spurious and wholly omitted from the records. These are the facts relating to these two fillies claimed originally to be by Turf, and there can be no moral doubt that they were omitted or excluded because Mr. Weatherby deemed them unsustained and probably spurious.

In confirmation of the facts and circumstances already adduced, going to show that Messenger was not thoroughbred, we are now ready to consider one of the strongest arguments that can be advanced in support of that conclusion. This argument is founded on the laws of nature and is not dependent upon the mere writing down of uncertain traditions. Messenger possessed and transmitted qualities that no thoroughbred horse has ever transmitted, from the period when the breed of race horses was formed to the present day. It is practically conceded on all hands that Messenger, by his own power and by his own right, founded a family of trotting horses, and this fact will be fully demonstrated in coming chapters. It is equally plain and, with honest and intelligent people, it is accepted with equal readiness, that no thoroughbred horse has ever done this. This declaration has been much controverted, but always in a general way and without specifying any particular thoroughbred horse that had succeeded in establishing a family of trotters. In the progress of a discussion of this point with the late Charles J. Foster, a very clear and able writer, he was directly challenged, in a manner that could not be dodged, to name the thoroughbred horse outside of Messenger, that had accomplished this feat. Greatly to my surprise, and I might say, gratification, he came back at me with _two of Messenger’s sons_—Hambletonian and Mambrino. Thus he conceded the whole contention, for out of, literally, thousands he had to come back to two sons of Messenger.

In reply to an article in _Wallace’s Monthly_ for December, 1887, going to show that Messenger was not a thoroughbred horse, Mr. Joseph Cairn Simpson, of California, an able man and a lifelong advocate of more running blood in the trotter, wrote a review of the article in question. After admitting the full force of the demonstration that Messenger was not a thoroughbred horse, there is one sentence to which Mr. Simpson cannot subscribe, and he quotes it as follows: “Complete and conclusive as these facts may be, there is still another fact equally complete and still more convincing. Messenger possessed and transmitted qualities that no thoroughbred horse, in the experience of man, ever possessed and transmitted.” This was a declaration of Messenger as a progenitor against the whole world of thoroughbreds, and Mr. Simpson felt that he could not let it pass unchallenged, and after scratching about among the thousands of thoroughbreds without finding anything, like poor Mr. Foster, he “acknowledges the corn,” and comes back with Mambrino, _the son of Messenger_, without, seemingly, once realizing that he was proving my contention.

The theory that if any other English race horse had been in Messenger’s place and bred upon the same mares and had his progeny developed as Messenger’s were developed, he would have produced the same results, has always been very popular with the advocates of “more running blood in the trotter.” No doubt there are still some honest, but not well-informed people, who hold to this view merely because they have never heard of any other imported English horses that were contemporaneous with Messenger, and hence have concluded there were none. If Messenger had been all alone during the twenty years of his stud services, as this theory assumes, there might be some reason to doubt whether some other English race horses might not have done just as well in establishing a line or tribe of trotters. But was he alone? From the close of the Revolutionary War to the end of the last century was a period of great activity and enterprise in the way of importing running horses from Great Britain. The blood of Herod and English Eclipse was in the highest estimate, not only in the old but in the new world, and a great many distinguished horses were brought over possessing those favorite strains. During that period racing was carried on with just as much spirit and _éclat_ on Long Island and the river counties of New York, New Jersey, and some of the eastern counties of Pennsylvania as it was in Virginia and South Carolina. Horses of the most fashionable lineage were sought after and patronized, not by a few great breeding establishments, but by the farmers generally, in all the region here designated. The following list of imported English race horses is made up of animals that were contemporaneous with Messenger, covering the same mares and the offspring subjected to precisely the same treatment and conditions. The list is limited to what may be called the trotting latitudes, and embraces such animals only as were brought into New Jersey, New York and Eastern Pennsylvania. We will not only give their names, but the blood elements also, so that all can see that Messenger not only had competitors but competitors of the highest grade of running blood.

Admiral, by Florizel, son of King Herod. Ancient Pistol, by Ancient Pistol, son of Snap. Arrakooker, by Drone, son of King Herod. Baronet, by Vertumnus, son of Eclipse. Benjamin, by Ruler, son of Young Marske. Creeper, by Tandem, son of Dainty Davy. Deserter, by Lenox, son of Delpini, by Highflyer. Dey of Algiers, Arabian. Diomed (Tate’s), by Phenomenon, son of King Herod. Driver, by Saltram, son of Eclipse. Drone, by King Herod. Dungannon (Young), by Dungannon. Expedition, by Pegasus, son of Eclipse. Express, by Postmaster, son of King Herod. Exton, by Highflyer, son of King Herod. Florizel, by Florizel, son of King Herod. Grand Seignor, Arabian. Highflyer (1782), by Highflyer. Highflyer (1792), by Highflyer. Highlander (Brown), by Paymaster. Highlander (Gray), by Bordeaux. Honest John, by Sir Peter Teazle. Joseph, by Ormond, son of King Fergus. King William, by King Herod. King William, by Paymaster. Light Infantry, by Eclipse. Magnetic Needle, by Magnet. Magnum Bonum, by Matchem. Nimrod, by King Fergus. North Star, by North Star, son of Matchem. Paymaster, by Paymaster. Prince Frederick, by Fortunio. Punch, by King Herod. Revenge, by Achilles. Rodney, by Paymaster. Royal George, by Jupiter, son of Eclipse. Royalist, by Saltram. Slender, by King Herod. Sour Crout, by Highflyer. Venetian, by Doge. Yorkshire, by Jupiter, son of Eclipse.

Here we have forty-one imported English stallions, contemporaneous with Messenger, occupying the same territory and covering the same mares that he covered. With the exceptions of two or three they were all ranked as not only thoroughbred, but they possessed the most fashionable and successful blood that England had then produced. A few of them were taken southward after a time, but the great body of them lived out their days here.

To this great array of imported English running horses we might add hundreds of their sons, and yet not find one that claimed to be thoroughbred that ever became a trotting progenitor or founded a family of trotters. Mr. Foster and Mr. Simpson, by far the two ablest writers on the wrong side of the question that this country has produced, with this list of forty English stallions before them from which to select their proof that Messenger was not the only progenitor of trotters, were at last compelled to take two of Messengers sons, as trotting progenitors, to prove that their sire was not a trotting progenitor. If the intellectual powers of these two gentlemen had enabled them to scratch ever so little beneath the glittering surface of the word “thoroughbred,” they would have saved themselves from this humiliating exhibition of absurdity.

What was true of Messenger’s contemporaries is equally true of all the strictly thoroughbred stallions that have lived on the earth from his day to the present. No one of them has ever founded a trotting family and no one of them has ever got a trotter out of a mare of his own kind. Out of the half-dozen instances on record where a thoroughbred horse has got a trotter there is no one instance in which the dam did not have a strong pacing or trotting inheritance. If we accept the known and recorded experiences of the past seventy years, in the trotting world, we find two great facts on every page of the record. First, Messenger left a family of trotters; second, no other thoroughbred horse did that. It follows, then, that if Messenger transmitted capacities different from those transmitted by thoroughbred horses, he must have had a different inheritance from thoroughbred horses, and if different, then that inheritance could not have been thoroughbred. From the facts we have developed in the history of his English ancestors; from the ten thousand demonstrations of his American descendants, and from the great laws which govern the transmission of special capacities, we are forced to the conclusion that Messenger was not a thoroughbred horse.