The Horse in America / A practical treatise on the various types common in the United States, with something of their history and varying characteristics

by John Gilmer Speed

INTRODUCTION

There have been so many books written about horses that in offering a new one I feel that an explanation, if not an apology, is due. And I am embarrassed as to how to frame the explanation without seeming to reflect on the books previously given to the public. Nothing could be further from my desire. Most of these previous books have been devoted to special kinds or types of horses without any effort to cover a very broad field. Some others have been frankly partizan with the avowed purpose of proving that this type or that was the only one that was worth serious consideration. All these are interesting, but valuable chiefly to the careful student bent on going into the subject of horse breeding and horse training in all of its branches. To do this an ordinary reader would have to study half a hundred books with the danger of becoming confused in the multiplicity of theories and conflicting statements and with the final result of knowing as little in the end as in the beginning. In this modest little volume I have endeavored briefly to show how the horses in America have been developed and have come to be what they are to-day. If I have succeeded even partly in my purpose I will have my ample reward; if I fail, my book will end on a few dusty library shelves along with hundreds of others on kindred subjects.

There is a peculiar characteristic of most writers on the horse. Let a man be ever so fair in his ordinary business and social life, he is apt, when he becomes interested in horses, to throw away his judicial attitude and change into an advocate who sees only one side. When his interest in that one side carries him to the length of writing, the tendency is to be so partizan that he is even discourteous to others who do not agree with him. This queer disposition to wrangle and dispute is due, no doubt, to the fact that horse breeding is not yet by any means an exact science, and the data, guiding even those who exercise the greatest care and intelligence, is not trustworthy. We do not know with certainty how any of the great types has been produced, for the beginnings of all of them are covered up by fictions, based on traditions not recorded, but handed down from generation to generation, or on fictions that have been manufactured with ingenious mendacity. All this is a pity, but there is no help for it now. What we can do is to tell what is true, show what has been demonstrated by known achievements and go on working in the material that we have at hand, so that we may assist in increasing the great property value that this country has in its horses.

That property value is immense. In the beginning of 1905, the Agricultural Department estimated that the (taxable) value of the horses in the United States was $1,200,310,020, and of mules $251,840,378, or a total of $1,452,150,398. This is only about eight per cent less than the aggregate value of the cows, beef cattle, sheep and hogs in the whole country. Merely, therefore, from an economic standpoint this question of preserving and increasing the value of horses is one of prime importance. At this particular time it is a question not only of increasing, but even of preserving, this value, for new agencies are coming into competition with horses for many purposes and are being substituted for horses in many others. The automobiles and the electric tramways are not merely passing fads. They have come to stay until substituted by something else which has not yet swum into our ken. The common horses will soon be obsolete except on our farms, and even on the farms they ought to be given up, for, notwithstanding all the great breeding establishments in the various states, by far the greater number of the horses are bred on the farms at present. That should always be the case; but it may not be so when the time comes that is rapidly approaching and a common horse will have next to no value at all. Farmers more than others need to realize that only such horses should be bred that will have a value for other than strictly farm work, for a farmer should be able to sell his surplus stock with a fair profit. If farmers have not the foresight to anticipate the inevitable, then they will have to accept the loss that will surely ensue.

Every breeder whether farmer, amateur or professional, should breed to a type. Any other method is merely a haphazard waste of time and money. When I say breed to a type, I mean always a reproducing type. There are several such in this country, a few of which belong to us, though most of them are of foreign origin. The Thoroughbred is English, the Percheron is French, the Hackney is English, the Orlof is Russian, the Clydesdale is English, the Morgan is American, the Denmark is American, the Clay-Arabian is American, and the standard bred trotter a kind of “go-as-you-please” mongrel; nevertheless he is considered by many the noblest achievement of intelligent American horse breeding. When any one goes in for horse breeding on either a small or a large scale, whether with one mare or with one hundred mares, he should, in selecting mates, always strive for a definite type in the foal. If intelligence and correct information be guided by experience the results are apt to be pleasantly satisfactory.

The first cardinal principle of horse breeding was formulated in England a century and a half ago in the expression: “Like begets like.” This rule has been followed in the creation and maintenance of all the great horse types in the civilized world, and singularly enough all of them, both great and small in size, have descended from Arab and Barb stock. This concise rule of breeding, “Like begets like,” has been misunderstood by some who did not take a sufficiently comprehensive view of it. This likeness does not refer merely to one thing; not to blood alone, nor to conformation, nor to performance; but to blood and to conformation and performance, but most of all to blood. Where blood lines, as to likeness, are disregarded, and conformation and performance are alone considered, the result is sure to be a lot of mongrels, some of them, it is true, of most surpassing excellence, but as a general thing, quite incapable of reproducing themselves with any reasonable certainty.

The great danger always in breeding horses and other domestic animals with the idea of improving a type or a family, is that mongrels may be produced. A mongrel is an animal that results from the union of dissimilar and heterogeneous blood. An improved and established reproducing type has hitherto been, and probably always will be, the result of the mingling of similar and homogeneous blood, crossed and recrossed until the similar becomes consanguineous. The Arab and Barb, I have said, are the foundation in blood of all the great types from the Percheron to the Thoroughbred. To be sure, other and dissimilar blood was used in the beginning of the making of all the types, but there was such crossing and recrossing, such grading up by a selection of mates, that the blood became similar, and the rule: “Like begets like,” being constantly followed a type becomes established.

When a type has been established and is of unquestioned value to the world, it should be preserved most carefully. The French, the Russians, the Germans and the Austrians do this by means of Governmental breeding farms. The English accomplish the same result by reason of the custom of primogeniture and entailed estates. Continuity in breeding is essential to its complete success. In this country when a breeder dies, his collection of horses is usually dispersed by sale to settle his estate. Considering our lack of Governmental assistance we have done amazingly well to become the greatest horse-producing country in the world. Our greatness, however, is mainly due to the vastness of our area, the fertility of our soil and consequent cheapness of pasturage, and to the high average intelligence of the American people. We have not exercised the scientific intelligence in breeding that some European people have done. So as breeders we have not a great deal to be proud of. We have done better as to quantity than quality. But we can do better, and I am sure that we will, for the time is hard upon us when the four-year-old horse that is not worth $300 in the market will not be worth his keep.

There is, however, an important public aspect to this question of improving and maintaining the breed of horses. Without good horses for cavalry the efficiency of an army is very much crippled. When our Civil War broke out horseback riding in the North had as an exercise for pleasure been generally given up, and nine-tenths of the men who went into the service on the Union side could not ride. On the other hand, at least seven-tenths of those who went into the Confederate army could ride. Moreover, the North had a scant supply of horses fit for cavalry, while in many States of the South such animals were abundant. Here we had on one side the material for a quickly-made cavalry, and on the other side practically no material either in horses or men for such a branch of the army. Critics of the war attribute the early successes of the South to the superiority of the cavalry. The Northern side was obliged to wait for nearly two years before that arm of the service was equal to that of the South. Thus, this distressful war was probably continued for more than a year longer than it would have been had the two sides in the beginning been equally supplied with riders and riding horses. And in the Japanese-Russian War, now in progress, the Japanese are hampered dreadfully by their lack of cavalry. They have beaten the Russians time and again only to let the Russians get away because of the Japanese inability, from lack of horses and horsemen, to cut off the line of retreat. It is a most distressingly expensive thing to be without horses in time of war; unless proper horses are abundant in time of peace, and the people who own them use them under the saddle, when war comes there is a scarcity of men who know how to ride. Good material for cavalry in horses and men is an excellent national investment.

In addition to my chapters on the breeding of various types I have added several others on the keeping, handling and using of horses so that if an owner have only this one book, he may be able to have at least a little useful information of many sorts and kinds.

THE HORSE IN AMERICA

CHAPTER ONE
PREHISTORIC AND EARLY HORSES

The paleontologists tell us that the rocks abound with fossils which show that Equidæ were numerous all over America in the Eocene period. These were the ancestors of the horse that was first domesticated, and though there were millions of them on the Continent of North America in the period mentioned there were no horses here at all when Columbus made his great discovery, and the first explorers came to find out what this new India was like. The remains of the prehistoric horse, when first found, baffled the naturalists, and he was called by Richard Owen Hyracotherium or Hyrax-like-Beast. The first fossils discovered showed that the horse was millions and millions of years ago under twenty-four inches in stature, with a spreading foot and five toes. In his development from this beginning the horse furnishes one of the most interesting examples of evolution. When he had five toes he lived in low-lying, marshy land and the toes were needed so that he could get about. He had a short neck and short jaws, as longer were not needed to enable him to feed on the easily reached herbage. As the earth became harder, the waters receding, his neck and jaws lengthened, as it was necessary for him to reach further to crop the less luxuriant and shorter grasses. He lost, also one toe after another so that he might travel faster and so escape his enemies. These toes, of course, did not disappear all at once, but grew shorter, until they hung above the ground. The “splint bones” on a horse’s legs are the remains of two of these once indispensable toes, while the hoof is the nail of the last remaining toe.

As the neck of the horse grew longer and two toes had been dropped, the legs lengthened and by the time he became what the scientists call a “Neohipparion” he was about three feet high, and his skeleton bore a very striking resemblance to that of the horse of to-day. The teeth also changed with the rest of the animal. In the earliest specimens discovered the teeth were short crowned and covered with low, rounded knobs, similar to the teeth of other omnivorous animals, such as monkeys and hogs, and were quite different from the grinders of the modern animal. When the marshy lands of the too-well watered earth had changed into grassy plains the teeth of the horse also changed from short crowned to long crowned, so that they could clip the shorter and dryer grasses and grind them up by thorough mastication into the nutritious food required for the animal’s well being.

Indeed, the whole history of the evolution of the horse by natural selection is a complete illustration of adaptation to environment. Even to-day in the Falkland Islands, where the whole surface is soft, mossy bogland, the horses’ feet grow to over twelve inches in length, and curl up so that frequently they can hardly walk upon them. Where we use horses on hard, artificial roads it is necessary to have this toe-nail or hoof pared, and protected by shoes.

Where the horse was first domesticated is a matter of dispute upon which historians are not at all agreed. Some say it was in Egypt, some select Armenia, and some content themselves with the general statement that horses were indigenous in Western and Central Asia. It would be interesting to go into this discussion were it not that it would delay us too long from the subject in hand. At first they were used only in war and for sport, the camel being used for journeys and transportation, and the ox for agriculture. Indeed, I fancy the horse was never used to the plough until in the tenth century in Europe. The sculptures of ancient Greece and contemporaneous civilizations give us the best idea obtainable of what manner of animal the horse was in the periods when those sculptures were made. Mr. Edward L. Anderson, one of the most careful students of the horse and his history, says: “Whether Western Asia is or is not the home of the horse, he was doubtless domesticated there in very early times, and it was from Syria that the Egyptians received their horses through their Bedouin conquerors. The horses of the Babylonians probably came from Persia, and the original source of all these may have been Central Asia, from which last-named region the animal also passed into Europe, if the horse were not indigenous to some of the countries in which history finds it. We learn that Sargon I. (3800 B.C.) rode in his chariot more than two thousand years before there is an exhibition of the horse in the Egyptian sculptures or proof of its existence in Syria, and his kingdom of Akkad bordered upon Persia, giving a strong presumption that the desert horse came from the last-named region through Babylonian hands. It seems after an examination of the representations on the monuments, that the Eastern horse has changed but little during thousands of years. Taking a copy of one of the sculptures of the palace of Ashur-bani-pal, supposed to have been executed about the middle of the seventh century before our era, and assuming that the bareheaded men were 5 feet 8 inches in height, I found that the horses would stand about 14½ hands—very near the normal size of the desert horse of our day. The horses of ancient Greece must have been starvelings from some Northern clime, for the animals on the Parthenon frieze are but a trifle over 12 hands in height, and are the prototypes of the Norwegian Fiord pony—a fixed type of a very valuable small horse.”

The British horse is as old as history. He was short in stature and heavy of build. New blood was infused by both the Romans and the Normans, and when larger horses were needed to carry heavily-armored knights, Flemish horses were introduced both for use and breeding, so that by the time the Oriental blood was introduced they had in England many pretty large horses, resembling somewhat the Cleveland Bay of the present time, though not so tall by three or four inches, and not so well finished. The horses that were first brought to America by the English were such as I have suggested. But the first horses brought hither were not English, but Spanish, and these were undoubtedly of Oriental blood as were the horses generally in Spain after the Moslem occupation. But when the Spanish first came there were no horses, as has been said before, in either North or South America. Columbus in his second voyage brought horses with him to Santo Domingo. But Cortez, when he landed in 1519 in what is now Mexico, was the first to bring horses to the mainland. They were the wonder of the Indians who believed that they were fabulous creatures from the sun. The wild horses of Mexico and Peru were no doubt descended from the escaped war horses of the Spanish soldiers slain in battle. These escaped horses reproduced rapidly, and the plains became populous with them. So, also, with the horses abandoned by De Soto, who returned from his Mississippi expedition in boats leaving his horses behind. Professor Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History, has recently been conducting explorations in Mexico, studying the wild horses there, and his conclusions are proof of the accuracy of the surmises which have been made by the historians of the early Spanish adventurers.

Flanders horses were brought to New York in 1625 and English horses to Massachusetts in 1629. Previous to these importations, however, English horses had been landed in Virginia, and in 1647 the first French horses reached Canada, being landed at the still very quaint village of Tadousac. Indeed, during all the colonial times there were many importations as well as much breeding, for on horseback was the only way a journey could be taken, except by foot or in a canoe. They needed good serviceable horses, and they obtained them both by importation and breeding. I suspect that the general run of horses in the Colonial era in New England and along the Atlantic seaboard was very similar to the horse that is now to be found in the province of Quebec, Canada. Every one who has visited this province knows that these habitant horses are very serviceable and handy, besides being quite fast enough for a country where the roads have not been made first class. Harnessed to a calash, an ancient, two-wheeled, French carriage, they take great journeys with much satisfaction to their drivers and small discomfort to themselves. Then the Colonists had the Narragansett pacer, a horse highly esteemed not only for speed but for the amble which made his slow gait most excellent for long journeys. When Silas Deane was the colleague of Benjamin Franklin at the French Court during the Revolutionary War, he proposed getting over from Rhode Island one of these pacers as a present for the queen. Indeed, there are those who maintain stoutly that the virtues of the American trotter as well as the American saddle-horse came from these pacers. That may be the case so far as the trotters are concerned, for of the horses bred to trot fast, as we shall presently see, more are pacers than trotters. As a matter of fact, however, Barbs are apt to pace, and these Narragansetts may have had such an origin. In the blood of all our horse types there is some proportion of Barb blood, and we find pacers among all except Thoroughbreds. I am sure I never saw a Thoroughbred that paced, or heard of one.

The history of the American horses with which we are concerned to-day may be said to have begun after the War of the Revolution. But the basic stock upon which the blood of the post-revolutionary importations was grafted was most important and also interesting. It was gathered from every country having colonies in North America and blended after its arrival. The Spanish and French blood was strongly Oriental and mixed kindly with that from Holland and England. At any rate, when Messenger came in 1788 and Diomed in 1799 there was good material in the way of horse-flesh ready and waiting to be improved.

CHAPTER TWO
ARAB AND BARB HORSES

The Arab horse from Nejd and the Berber horse from Barbary are the most interesting and most important specimens of the equine race. This has been the case as far back as the history of the horse runs and tradition makes it to have been so for a much longer period. And, moreover, these horses in the perpetuation of established European and American types are as important to-day as ever. From this Nejdee Arabian and Berber of Barbary have sprung by a mingling of these ancient bloods with other strains, all of the reproducing horse types of signal value in the civilized world, including the Percheron of France, the Orlof of Russia, the charger of Austria, the Thoroughbred of England, the Morgan of Vermont, Mr. Huntington’s rare but interesting Clay-Arabians of New York and the Denmarks of Kentucky. The same is the case with other types or semi-types, but I only particularize these because the mere mention of them shows to what uses this singularly prepotent blood can be put when the two extremes of equine types, and those between the extremes as well, appear to owe their reproducing quality to the blood of these handsome little animals that have been bred, preserved and, so far as possible, monopolized by the nomadic tribes of Barbary and of Nejd. Nejd comprises the nine provinces of Central Arabia, while the Berbers wander all through the Barbary states which consist of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, but keep as remote as possible from what European influence that exists in that section of the world.

NIMR (ARAB)
Imported by Randolph Huntington

To most horsemen in America the name of Arab is anathema. They will have none of him. So far as their light goes they are quite right in their prejudice. But prejudice in this instance, as in most others, is the result of ignorance. And I trust in the light of what I shall say about the Nejdee Arabian, the Berbers of Barbary and the influence of this blood on the equine stock of the world, I may say this without any offense. If I give the offense then I preface it with the apology that I mean none. The truth is that seven out of ten of the Arabian horses taken into Europe or brought to America have been inferior specimens and not of the correct breed; twenty per cent at least have been mongrels and impostures, while of the remaining ten per cent not more than one per cent have been correct in their breeding, conformation and capacity to do what was expected of them.

Some men reading the history of this type and that have persuaded themselves that a few Arabs selected personally in Arabia would enable them to beat their competitors as breeders and even to win against horses that traced back one hundred or two hundred years ago to Arab and Barb ancestors. Such folly always resulted in costly disappointment. This folly and consequent disappointment will become manifest as my narrative proceeds. But before going any further I do not wish any of my readers to harbor the notion that I think an Arab would stand any chance on an ordinary race-course to outrun an English Thoroughbred, or to out-trot in harness or under saddle an Orlof or an American. I maintain no such absurdity. But I do maintain that all these types, so that they may preserve their reproductive capacities, must get from time to time fresh infusions of this blood. That is why the purely bred Arabian—and the Nejdee is the purest of all—is as valuable to-day as when the Godolphin Barb and the Darley Arabian began the regeneration of the English horse into that wonderful Thoroughbred, which is one of England’s proudest achievements and most constant sources of wealth.

Historical records dating back to the fifth century show that the best quality and the greatest number of Arabian horses were to be found in Nejd. They are also to be found there to-day, and the number has not, so far as the records speak, increased. They have never been numerous, as it has never been the policy of the chiefs to breed for numbers, but for quality. It is not true, however, that a lack of forage was the restraining cause of this comparative scarcity of horses in the very section where they have been kept in their greatest perfection. As a matter of fact, the pasture land of Arabia is singularly good. The very desert, during the greater part of the year, supplies sufficient browse for camels; while the pasture grass for horses, kine, and above all for sheep on the upper hill slopes, and especially in Nejd, is first-rate. To be sure there are occasional droughts, but few grazing countries in the world are free from them. No, the scarcity in horses is not due to a lack of food, but to two other reasons entirely satisfactory to the chiefs of Nejd. Horses there are not a common possession and used by all. On the contrary, their ownership is a mark of distinction and an indication of wealth, as they are never used except for war and the chase and racing, the camel carrying the burdens and doing the heavy work of the caravans. The second reason for the scarcity is that Nejdee horses are very rarely sold to be taken out of the province. This is not the result of sentiment, but one purely of protection and the desire to preserve a monopoly in a race that is easily the very purest in the world.

The traditions as to the origin of the Arabian horse are numerous. Some hold that they are indigenous. If this were supported, then the traditions would lose interest. But the traditions are interesting and in general effect were thus expressed by the Emir Abd-El-Kader in 1854, in a letter addressed to General Daumas, a division commander who served long in Arabia and who was later a senator of France. He said that God created the horse before man, and then this domestic animal was handed down: “1st. From Adam to Ishmael; 2d, from Ishmael to Solomon; 3d, from Solomon to Mohammed; 4th, from Mohammed to our own times.” This tradition, it must be said, is very general and comprehensive in its scope, but to the Arabs it has a significant meaning, as they claim that Ishmael, the bastard son of Abraham, was not only one of themselves but their founder, for is it not written in the Bible that when Hagar, the concubine of Abraham, fled into the wilderness, an angel appeared to her and said:

“I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered for multitude. Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son and shalt call his name Ishmael; and he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”

Indeed, this son of Abraham was the very personification of the Arabian people throughout their whole history, and he needed horses as the Arabian people have needed them ever since to assist in the forays and expeditions which give to life its spice and its prize. Then again, there is a tradition that Nejd got its horses from Solomon; another that they came from Yemen. This seems to me the same tradition, for Yemen’s ancient name was Sheba; and what more natural than for Solomon to have rewarded with gifts of horses the Queen of Sheba’s people for giving him one of his most satisfactory wives. Then there is a story that has been builded up in our own days by a man who was a Methodist minister before he became a manufacturer of trotting-horse pedigrees in this country. This interesting man in his old age, if he did not resume the occupation of his youth, did study the Bible in the endeavor to show that the Arabian horses never had been much in quality and many in numbers, and that their antiquity was not of any importance for they had not been taken into Arabia from Armenia until the third century. A century or so made little difference to a man like Wallace, who unwittingly gave to these horses two centuries more of record than history really accounts for. But whether the Nejdee Arabs were indigenous or brought into the land by Ishmael, or sent by Solomon, or taken there by the Armenians, it is certain that they were there a hundred years before Mohammed became a prophet, and in characteristics of size, temper and performance they were the same that we find to-day. So that gives us a long record of fifteen centuries during which we know that the greatest care has been taken to keep them pure in blood and to train them to the work for which they were required.

The tradition as to the Berber horse of Barbary is much simpler, as these robber tribes have not developed poets or historians, and content themselves with saying that the horses have always been there. And so far as we are concerned that statement is as satisfactory as any other. But we do know that supplies of these horses were obtained by Saladin in his domestic wars, and were used also in his contests with the faith-breaking crusaders who vainly tried to destroy the Moslem rule and obtain perpetual possession of Jerusalem. From the earliest times it has been a mooted point as to which was the superior, the Berber or the Nejdee. Among the Europeans who have lived much in Egypt this is still a disputed matter, and when Count de Lesseps was a young man he endeavored to decide the question by a series of races at 4½ kilometers (about 2⅘ miles). Other horses, however, were admitted. In the first heat there were three Nejdee horses all bred in Cairo—the purity of the blood being open to suspicion—and one Syrian horse. A Cairo-bred Nejdee was the winner. In the second heat there were three Nejdee horses, one bred in Cairo, and one Barbary horse from Tunis owned and ridden by Count de Lesseps himself. The Barb won. In the third heat there were three Nejdee horses, one of them ridden by de Lesseps, and one Samean horse. A Cairo-bred Nejdee horse won. In the fourth heat there were three Nejdee horses and one Egyptian horse from Abfeh. A Nejdee horse was the winner. Then came the final heat between the winners of the trial heats. The result was that the de Lesseps Barbary horse was first, a Cairo-bred Nejdee horse was second, and Nejdee horses third and fourth.

This trial was cited by General Daumas as evidence that at least the Barb was not inferior to the Nejdee in fleetness. It only indicates to me that Count de Lesseps was the shrewder of the contestants and had selected the best individual animal among the sixteen competitors. However, the Emir Abd-El-Kader believed in the superiority of the Barbs, and as an instance of this, quoted the practice of Aamrou-El-Kais, an ancient King of Arabia, who “took infinite pains to secure Barbary horses wherewith to combat his enemies. He was doubtful of success if obliged to trust himself to Arab horses. It is not possible, in my opinion, to give a more invincible proof of the superiority of the Barb.” This illustration may have been convincing to the learned Musselman, but to-day we should want, I think, a more modern instance to be satisfied; and we should want to know more of the individuals in the de Lesseps’s trials than has been recorded. That the Barbs have had as great influence in the creation of other types as the Nejdees is undoubtedly true, for while it has never been easy to get the best specimens of Barbary horses for exportation, it has never been so difficult as to get Nejdee Arabians of equivalent excellence. The Berbers were natives of Palestine and expelled by one of the Persian kings. They emigrated to Egypt, but were refused permission to settle, so they crossed over to the other side of the Nile. They were adventuresome robbers, as they are to-day, and no doubt have taken their horses with them from their first setting out from Palestine. So I quote Abd-El-Kader again: “As for the Berbers themselves, everything proves that they have been known from time immemorial, and that they came from the East to settle in the Maghreb, where we find them at the present day.”

Europe did not know much of these Arab and Barb horses until the Arabs and Moors invaded and conquered Spain. The invasion of Spain began in the eighth century and the rule lasted until into the thirteenth century, though the Moors held Grenada for two centuries later. What became a conquest was begun merely as a raid for rich booty, and, of course, the Arabs, of whom it has been said, “their kingdom is the saddle,” were mounted. The Berbers, of course, took their horses, and it is likely that during those long centuries, it was the first time out of the Sahara that Arabian and Barb horses were bred extensively and their blood united. It is undoubtedly a fact that after the expulsion of these conquerors, Spain was well supplied with excellent horses, horses which assisted the armies of Spain to hold what her navigators had discovered. The pilgrims returning from Palestine, also told of the excellent horses in the East, and the Crusaders, more practical men, had all the evidence that they needed in their battles with the Musselman to enable them to testify to the hardiness and the fleetness of the horses of the desert. And so when lighter cavalry was needed to replace the heavily-armed knights, whose armor the use of gunpowder had made obsolete, the soldiers and statesmen of the seventeenth century knew where to look for the blood that would improve the home-bred horses. It was as difficult then as now to get Arabs and Barbs of the best blood, but some at least were obtained, and from the beginning in England in the earliest years of the eighteenth century we trace back to Eastern horses to find the founders of the wonderful Thoroughbreds, which in their way are the best horses the world has seen. In France, too, there were many importations for the upbuilding of the native stock, but this took a different direction, and we are not so much concerned with it as with the English.

The English stud book of the Messrs. Weatherby, the first effort to keep trustworthy records of the breeding of horses, begins with 1700, the only Eastern horse mentioned before this being the Byerly Turk, a charger used by Captain Byerly in Ireland in 1689. Then they had the Darley Arabian, Markham’s Arabian, the Alasker Turk, Leede’s Arabian and the Godolphin Barb. The most important of these were the Godolphin Barb and the Darley Arabian. We do not know exactly whence any of these came, nor do we know the pedigree of any. Indeed, to know, or pretend to know the pedigree of a Nejdee or Berber horse is to show ignorance or to confess imposture. The breeders do not keep or give pedigrees except when they wish to bolster up the merits of an inferior animal. And then they do it because they have been asked to do so by European or American purchasers not acquainted with the Arab practices. It seems as sensible to ask an Arab for the pedigree of a horse as to ask a diamond merchant for the pedigree of a stone. The Arabs have had these horses time out of mind. They know them to be purely bred. What more could a sensible man want? But if the purchaser insists, then he may have any kind of pedigree that seems to please him most. He can have pure Nejdee, pure Barb, a cross between the two, or any admixture of Egyptian, Syrian, or Turkish blood that best suits his taste. But as a matter of fact, these Eastern pedigrees are pure fakes, merely made up things, such, for instance, as the recorded pedigree of the famous Hambletonian, the founder of the standard bred trotter in America. To the Arabs in their breeding, pedigree makes no more difference in mating than it does to the birds of the air or the beasts of the forest. They know that they have animals of pure blood and that the progeny of them will still be pure no matter how closely the parents may be related. There is selection, of course, as inferior males are not permitted to be sires. Instead of that they are sometimes destroyed, or sent to Syria and even to Mesopotamia to serve the mares of those regions where the mares are Arabs but not pure Nejdees. Here is one queer fact about the Arab and Barb blood, and proof also of its wonderful prepotency. So long as it is mingled with other blood not too heterogeneous, the most close inbreeding appears not only to do no harm, but actually to do good. This is particularly so with the English Thoroughbred, the American Morgan, and the Kentucky Denmark.

All we are told about the Darley Arabian is this. Mr. Darley of Yorkshire, had a brother who was a merchant in Aleppo. This brother brought home a black bay[^[1]] stallion some 14 hands in stature, about 1700. He became in 1707 the sire of Flying Childers, the greatest race-horse in England and the progenitor of most of those on the running turf in America and England to-day. The dam of Flying Childers was also rich in Oriental blood, as she was an inbred Spanker and Spanker was by D’Arcy’s Yellow Turk from the daughter of Morocco Barb and Old Bald Peg, the latter being by an Arab horse from a Barb mare. So we see that this first great English race-horse was almost of pure Eastern blood.

[1]. A very unusual color for a Nejdee.

Of Markham’s Arabian we only know that he met with the disapproval of the then Master of Horse, the Duke of Newcastle, and had scant chance. Of the Godolphin Barb we know very little previous to his coming to England, where he was held in such little esteem that he was used as a teaser for Hobgoblin. We are told, however, that he was first taken to France and held of such little account that he was used as a cart horse, in Paris. He was finally brought to England about 1725, and became the property of Lord Godolphin. He was a brown bay, 15 hands high, and with an unnaturally high crest. He served Roxana in 1731, the produce being Lath, next to Flying Childers the greatest horse in England in the first half of the eighteenth century. Roxana was by Bald Galloway, her dam sister to Chanter by the Alasker Turk from a daughter by Leedes’s Arabian and a mare by Spanker. Here we see again the value of these crosses of Oriental blood. From the mating of the Godolphin Barb and Roxana also came Cade, the sire of Regulus, the grandam of that most marvelous horse, Eclipse. When all this had happened the English were sure they were on the right road. And they have kept on that road with great persistency, not going back, however, in my opinion, frequently enough to the pure Nejdee and Berber stock for fresh infusions. That they have not done this is natural enough, however. A breeder wants results quickly. To get a collateral strain from fresh Arab and Barb blood equal to the present thoroughbred would probably take fifty years. No private breeder cares to do that. And the English government does not officially breed horses. The French, the Austrians and the Russians all, however, have agents in Arabia trying to buy the animals that are best suited to do just what I have suggested. And they all succeed. It is too much, however, to expect this from a private breeder.[^[2]]

[2]. According to the reckoning of Major Roger D. Upton of the 9th Royal Lancers, there were used in the formation of the English stud from the time of James I, to the beginning of the 19th Century, Eastern horses to this extent: 101 Arab stallions, 7 Arab mares, 42 Barb stallions, 24 Barb mares, 1 Egyptian stallion, 5 Persian stallions, 20 Turkish stallions, and 2 “Foreign” stallions, or 210 in all. In the popular mind of all of these were classed as Arabs. This is not right, as the real Arab is much purer in blood than the others, though the Barbs have virtues by no means to be despised.

One, however, in this country has had the courage and the tenacity of purpose to do this. I allude to Mr. Randolph Huntington, of Oyster Bay on Long Island. Mr. Huntington has mingled Arab and Barb blood with that of the Henry Clay family to which he is very partial. His success in creating a reproducing type has been demonstrated in the face of handicaps that would have worn out the patience of a less tenacious and determined man. This experiment of Mr. Huntington makes a story of its own which I shall tell in a later chapter.

RANDOLPH HUNTINGTON AND HIS IMPORTED ARAB MARE NAOMI, AND FOAL

From the time that superior horses began to be imported into this country, and that was in the Colonial era, there have always been a few Arabs and Barbs brought over of various degrees of excellence. Of course, all of the English Thoroughbreds were rich in the blood, Messenger among them. They came also into Canada with the French, and the Spaniards who had crossed the Mississippi and gone to California from Mexico brought many horses all presumably of this breed. The hardy Mustangs of the West, which were a very distinct type, were evidently descended from the castaways of the Spanish explorers. To President Jefferson there came a gift of Arab stallions and mares. These were sold and the money turned into the treasury. After Ibraheem Pasha overran Arabia in 1817, and took several hundred head of Nejdee horses to Egypt it was easier for a time to buy them for exportation. And from there at about this time there were several importations into America. This supply, however, was soon exhausted, as the Egyptians are not skilled horse breeders. Besides, the French got the pick of this captured lot.

Then again, Teysul, King of Nejd, made a present of forty stallions and mares to Abdul-Azeez, Sultan of Turkey. From this source came Zilcaadi, the grandsire of the great Morgan horse Golddust, and also the Arab stallion Leopard, given to General Grant in 1879, when the Barb, Linden Tree, was also presented to him by the Sultan. It was with these two Grant stallions, by the way, that Mr. Huntington began the experiment I just alluded to.

What gave the Arab horse a kind of disrepute in America was the experiments of Mr. A. Keene Richards. Mr. Richards was a man of wealth and education and a breeder of race-horses in the Blue Grass section of Kentucky. In studying the history of the English Thoroughbred he came to the conclusion he would like to get fresh infusions of the original blood. He went to Arabia, and personally selected several stallions. These he mated with his Thoroughbred mares, and when the colts were old enough he entered them in the races. They were not fast enough to win even when conceded weight. He went again, this was about 1855, taking with him the animal painter, Troye. They took their time, and came back with a superior lot. Mr. Richards tried over again the same experiment with the same result. The colts did not have the speed to beat the Thoroughbreds. It seems to me that any one except an incurable enthusiast would have anticipated exactly what happened. If Mr. Richards had waited several generations and then injected the new infusions of the Arab blood, the result probably would have been quite different. The Civil War came along about this time, however, and the experiment ended in what was considered a failure. But that blood taken to Kentucky at that time by Mr. Richards has been valuable in an unexpected way, for it has been preserved in the half-bred horses in the horse-breeding section, and it crops out all the time in those wonderful saddle-horses of the Denmark strain, which are sent all over the country to delight the lovers of horseback exercise as well as to monopolize the ribbons in the horse shows. Mr. Wilfrid Blunt, in England, has had experiences similar to Mr. Richard’s. But he has gone the same wrong road, and has been in too much of a hurry. Continuity in breeding is something beyond the capacity of an individual; his life is not long enough. That is why every government should have a stud to keep up the standard of the horses. In the United States the interests are so diverse that it is not likely that this will soon be done in an extensive way, though already begun on a small scale, but each State, whose people are horse breeders, should do something of the sort, so that the success of an undertaking might not depend upon the uncertain life and more uncertain fortunes of any one man.

In Arabia the horses are trained at a very early age. Indeed, the suckling colt is handled almost from his birth. As a yearling he is trained to obey, exercised with the halter and the bit. At two-years old he is ridden gently but without fear of hurting him. At three there is a let-up in his work, so that he may acquire his full growth; but he is used enough to keep him from forgetting what he has been taught. At four he is considered full-grown and is put to as hard service as the Arab usually knows. It is a mistaken idea that the Arab horse is considered a member of the family to which he belongs, and that he is pampered, petted and caressed by the women and children, and stabled in the same tents as his owners. Those are all fanciful ideas of the poets. On the contrary, an Arab horse is early immured to hardships, so that in emergency he may subsist on scant food and little water. Every one has heard it said that an Arab would give his last crust to his horse rather than eat it himself. I readily grant that in some cases he would do so, and so would any other man of sense in a like predicament. The Arabs are great robbers and wonderful chaps to run away. In the desert they do not have telegraphs and telephones to intercept a fleeing thief. There it is a question of the fastest and longest enduring horse. So of course, a fleeing Arab, with his pursuers hot on his track, would give his last crust to his horse rather than eat it himself. He would be a fool if he did not. That last crust might be the very fuel that would keep life and strength in his engine of escape. The Arab is not a sentimentalist except when he talks or makes poetry. In his words he exhausts his whole supply. Beneath them he is a very shrewd, cold and able man of affairs.

In his horses the Arab has immemorially had the means to gratify his vanity, to give him his best beloved sport, to enable him to make war, and, above all, to run away. The distances that these horses can go on scant rations and small quantities of water seem incredible, while that they can carry heavy weight without inconvenience is entirely true, for I have tried them. But we have heard weird stories of them from the Arabic poets themselves, and also from the English who have used what they could get for their sports in India, where pony racing has ever been, since the English occupation, a most attractive diversion. A frequent expression that one comes across in old books of life in India is that some named Arab horse had a head so small that it could be put in a quart cup. That, of course, was an absurd exaggeration, but they undoubtedly have very small and handsome heads. Their heads, I am sure, were never so small nor their necks so long as the painters have represented the heads and necks of the Darley Arabian and the Godolphin Barb to have been. At that time in England, however, the painters even took the liberty of exaggerating the length of neck and diminutiveness of head of the women who sat to them. It was the fashion of the time, and to that fashion we owe the loss of correct likenesses of two of the famous horses of those breeds that have left their impress upon the fleetest racers in the world, besides contributing the reproducing capacity to all the horse types that amount to anything in the civilized world.

CHAPTER THREE
THE THOROUGHBRED IN AMERICA

In the previous chapter I have told, as well as I could, how the English race-horse was developed by a commingling of Oriental blood with that of horses that had been used for sporting purposes in our mother country. I confess that my explanation must seem very slipshod to any who are looking for a mathematically exact exposition of facts. Nothing would have pleased me better than to have been able to gratify the natural craving that people have for exactness. But I cannot be less general than I have, for more specific information is not at my command. It was simply demonstrated by practical experiments that the mixture of the bloods mentioned produced a very fast and sturdy horse that was superior to what had previously been known in England, together with the more important fact that this new Anglo-Arab was a type that was reproducing and kept on improving in speed and staying qualities so long as the cardinal principle of breeding: “like produces like” was adhered to with the comprehensive intelligence which made the rule embrace performance, conformation and blood. To the narrow-minded the law “like produces like,” indicates that the progeny of the fastest stallion and the fastest mare, when breeding for speed, would be faster than either parent. It is a well-known fact that mares whose fleetness and gameness has been demonstrated by long careers on the turf are rarely successful as dams. Of course, there have been exceptions to this general statement, but notwithstanding these exceptions, the narrow-minded application of the rule breaks down just at this point. It is likeness in blood, conformation and general characteristics that the rule more particularly refers to. At any rate, the English had, by the middle of the eighteenth century, developed a distinctive type of horse of most marvelous fleetness and courage and with a blood prepotency that has been so great, that after a century and a half the Thoroughbred is as much improved over what he was at the beginning as the beginners were better than the common stock of England a century earlier. And this is the type that we call to-day in America the Thoroughbred.

The importation of the Thoroughbred into this country began in Colonial Virginia, where there was then probably more sporting blood than there is now, when it cannot be said to be at all pallid, but on the contrary very red. The first Thoroughbred of which there is record, and the record is not as exact as we should like, was brought to Virginia in 1730, by Messrs. Patton and Gist, and was called Bulle Rock. He was said to have been foaled in 1718, and to have been sired by the Darley Arabian, first dam by the Byerly Turk. That was good breeding, and the gentlemen of Virginia accepted, to an extent, at least, the invitation of Bulle Rock’s owners to use his services in improving the general stock of the Old Dominion, for every now and then in the very oldest records he appears in the genealogy. How good the horses were that were landed in Virginia previous to this time, we can not say, but only presume that they were as good as the importers could find and afford to buy, for they were fox hunters and hard riders from the beginning of their coming. After Bulle Rock’s coming to Virginia, very quickly Dabster, Jolly Ranger, Janus, and Fearnaught followed.

The South Carolinians were not long behind the Virginians in their importations, and by 1760 a jockey club had been established in Charleston, and regular race meetings were held. Many of the wealthy land owners imported and bred horses for these contests. In the same year that this club was founded, Colonel De Lancey, of New York, brought out Lath from England, and a little later Wildair, the horse supposed by some to have been the great grandsire of the dam of Justin Morgan, founder of the Morgan type of Vermont. About the same time there came to New York the Cub Mare and Fair Rachel, both still famous in the pedigrees in the “American Stud Book.” These matrons found homes in Virginia, and assisted in the making of those old time “four mile heat” horses, the only kind which our ancestors deemed really first rate. Before the Revolutionary War there was much racing in Long Island as well as in Virginia and the Carolinas, but the great contests between states and sections did not begin till a later date. During the Revolutionary War there were few importations of Thoroughbreds, but when the young country had a little recovered in her industries from the effects of that conflict, the importations began again and in 1788 the gray stallion Messenger, the founder in some measure of our trotting stock, was brought out, and in 1799 the Derby winner Diomed—the most important of all horses, so far as race-horses in America are concerned—came out to Virginia. Of Messenger, much will be said in the proper place; of Diomed, here is the place to speak of his record and his influence on the Thoroughbreds born to America. As a race-horse he was par excellence the horse of his day in England, carrying practically everything before him while that day lasted. But he was kept in training too long—for what may be called two days instead of one—and rather lost his fame before he was retired to the stud. In the stud he was successful, but was not fashionable, his standing fee being reduced to two guineas before he was sold to Colonel Hoomes to be taken to Virginia. In Virginia he was an immense success as a sire, and few successful horses of American stock up to the present time lack a strain of this blood. Among his American progeny were Sir Archie, Florizel, Potomac, Peacemaker, Top Gallant, Hamiltonian, Vingt-un, Duroc, Hampton, Commodore Trixton, the dam of Sir Henry and the dam of Eliza White. He was in the stud only eight years in this country, but left an imperishable impression. While he lived he dominated all other stallions in America, and afterwards his sons worthily took his place. He was a chestnut, 15.3 in stature, and was got by Florizel out of a Spectator mare, her dam by Blank, grandam by Childers out of Miss Belvoir by Gray Grantham, and so forth. The greatest race-horse of Diomed’s get in America was Sir Archy; and Sir Archy rivaled his sire’s performances in the stud. He was retired early and, living to a great age, had opportunities denied to Diomed.

LEXINGTON
Bred by Dr. Warfield and owned by Mr. Ten Broeck and Mr. Alexander

Before the death of Sir Archy, racing was well established in America in several sections and was pre-eminently the sport of gentlemen. The wagers made were heavy—would be considered heavy to-day when the sport has become defiled by being very much of a gambler’s game—but the races run were comparatively few. Section against section soon became popular—the North against the South, Virginia against South Carolina, Kentucky against Tennessee, and so on. The first, and in many regards the most important of these contests, was a race at four mile heats over the Union Course on Long Island in 1823, for a wager of $20,000 a side. Sir Henry, the representative of the South, was by Sir Archy, dam by Diomed and grandam by Bel Air. He was four years old, and carried 108 pounds. Eclipse (or American Eclipse) was by Duroc, his dam being Miller’s Damsel by Messenger. He was nine years old and carried 126 pounds. So it will be seen that the contestants were both grandsons of Diomed; indeed, Sir Henry was a grandson through both sire and dam. The description of the race I take from that entertaining book, “Figures of the Past,” by the late Josiah Quincy, with the consent of the publishers, Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., of Boston. Here is what Mr. Quincy wrote from his diary.

“ECLIPSE” AGAINST THE WORLD

“On the 27th of May, 1823, nearly fifty-seven years ago, there was great excitement in the city of New York, for on that day the long-expected race of ‘Eclipse against the world’ was to be decided on the race-course on Long Island. It was an amicable contest between the North and the South. The New York votaries of the turf—a much more prominent interest than at present—had offered to run Eclipse against any horse that could be produced, for a purse of $10,000; and the Southern gentlemen had accepted the challenge. I could obtain no carriage to take me to the course, as every conveyance in the city was engaged. Carriages of every description formed an unbroken line from the ferry to the ground. They were driven rapidly, and were in very close connection; so much so that when one of them suddenly stopped, the poles of at least a dozen carriages broke through the panels of those preceding them. The drivers were, naturally, much enraged at this accident; but it seemed a necessary consequence of the crush and hurry of the day, and nobody could be blamed for it. The party that I was with, seeing there was no chance of riding, was compelled to foot it. But after plodding some way, we had the luck to fall in with a returning carriage, which we chartered to take us to the course. On arriving, we found an assembly which was simply overpowering; it was estimated that there were over one hundred thousand persons upon the ground. The condition of the race were four-mile heats, the best two in three; the course was a mile in length. A college friend, the late David P. Hall, had procured for me a ticket for the jockey-box, which commanded a view of the whole field. There was great difficulty in clearing the track, until Eclipse and Sir Henry (the Southern horse), were brought to the stand. They were both in brave spirits, throwing their heels high into the air; they soon effected that scattering of the multitude which all other methods had failed to accomplish. And now a great disappointment fell, like a wet blanket, on more than half the spectators. It was suddenly announced that Purdy, the jockey of Eclipse, had had a difficulty with his owner and refused to ride. To substitute another in his place seemed almost like giving up the contest; but the man was absolutely stubborn, and the time had come. Another rider was provided, and the signal for the start was given. I stood exactly opposite the judges’ seat, where the mastering excitement found its climax. Off went the horses, every eye straining to follow them. Four times they dashed by the judges’ stand, and every time Sir Henry was in the lead. The spirits of the Southerners seemed to leap up beyond control, while the depression of the more phlegmatic North set in like a physical chill. Directly before me sat John Randolph, the great orator of Virginia. Apart from his intense sectional pride, he had personal reasons to rejoice at the turn things were taking; for he had bet heavily on the contest, and, it was said, proposed to sail for Europe upon clearing enough to pay his expenses. Half an hour elapsed for the horses to get their wind, and again they were brought to the stand. But now a circumstance occurred which raised a deafening shout from the partizans of the North. Purdy was to ride. How his scruples had been overcome did not appear, but there he stood before us, and was mounting Eclipse. Again, amidst breathless suspense, the word “Go!” was heard, and again Sir Henry took the inside track, and kept the lead for more than two miles and a half. Eclipse followed close on his heels and, at short intervals, attempted to pass. At every spurt he made to get ahead, Randolph’s high-pitched and penetrating voice was heard each time shriller than before: ‘You can’t do it, Mr. Purdy! You can’t do it, Mr. Purdy! You can’t do it, Mr. Purdy!’ But Mr. Purdy did do it. And as he took the lead what a roar of excitement went up! Tens of thousands of dollars were in suspense, and, although I had not a cent depending, I lost my breath, and felt as if a sword had passed through me. Purdy kept the lead and came in a length or so ahead. The horses had run eight miles, and the third heat was to decide the day. The confidence on the part of the Southern gentlemen was abated. The manager of Sir Henry rode up to the front of our box and, calling to a gentleman, said: ‘You must ride the next heat; there are hundreds of thousands of Southern money depending on it. That boy don’t know how to ride; he don’t keep his horse’s mouth open!’ The gentleman positively refused, saying that he had not been in the saddle for months. The manager begged him to come down, and John Randolph was summoned to use his eloquent persuasions. When the horses were next brought to the stand, behold the gentleman[^[3]] appeared, booted and spurred, with a red jacket on his back, and a jockey cap on his head. On the third heat Eclipse took the lead, and, by dint of constant whipping and spurring, won by a length this closely contested race.

[3]. Arthur Taylor, a Virginian.

“There was never contest more exciting. Sectional feeling and heavy pecuniary stakes were both involved. The length of time before it was decided, the change of riders, the varying fortunes, all intensified the interest. I have seen the great Derby races; but they finish almost as soon as they begin, and were tame enough in comparison to this. Here for nearly two hours there was no abatement in the strain. I was unconscious of everything else, and found, when the race was concluded, that the sun had actually blistered my cheek without my perceiving it. The victors were, of course, exultant, and Purdy mounted on Eclipse, was led up to the judges’ stand, the band playing, ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes.’ The Southerners bore their losses like gentlemen, and with a good grace. It was suggested that the comparative chances of Adams and Jackson at the approaching presidential election should be tested by a vote of that gathering. ‘Ah,’ said Mr. Randolph, ‘if the question of the Presidency could be settled by this assembly, there would be no opposition: Mr. Purdy would go to the White House by acclamation.’”

TEN BROECK (THOROUGHBRED)
Bred and owned by John Harper

The first heat was run in 7.37½, the second in 7.49, and the third in 8.24. Not very fast time considering what has been done since; and contemptible according to the pretensions made by race-horse owners of the present day, when “four-mile heats” are obsolete because they interfere with the business of the sport, and do not give the bookmakers frequent enough chance to turn over the money of the public. They base these pretensions on the performance of Lucretia Borgia, a four-year-old, that ran a four-mile dash in 1897, in California, in 7.11, carrying eighty-five pounds. I have no doubt that the Thoroughbreds of the present are much faster than those of 1823, but the only way to compare them as to gameness and bottom is to have them repeat and repeat again, and see whether or not this increased fleetness is maintained. Probably it will not be done, for the one-time sport of gentlemen is nowadays very much a mere gambler’s game.

The next great contest that old-time racing men spoke of with a respect that was akin to awe was that between Gray Eagle, a Kentucky horse, by Woodpecker out of Ophelia by Medley, and a Louisiana horse, Wagner, by Sir Charles out of Maria West by Marion, at four-mile heats. This was at Louisville in 1839. Wagner won the first two heats, Gray Eagle being badly ridden, in 7.48 and 7.44. This race was run on a Monday. The following Saturday the race was repeated. Gray Eagle won the first heat in 7.51; Wagner took the second heat in 7.43. Gray Eagle broke down on the second mile of the third race, and no time was kept. Though I was not born for many years after these races were run, they were so important in the history of the neighborhood where I lived and such frequent topics of conversation that I sometimes have difficulty in persuading myself that I was not present. In this I somewhat resemble the gallant King of England, who believed that he was at the battle of Waterloo.

Kentucky had become prominent before this time as a breeding place for Thoroughbreds. The Kentuckians, mainly from Virginia in the early days, were horse lovers by inheritance and habit, so they took with them to their new homes very little but good stock. They were not impoverished adventurers seeking new pioneer homes because they had failed in the places of their birth. Not a bit of it. They were well born and of good substance, and they went to this new country to found estates, for the gentlemen of that period had not outgrown the Elizabethan land hunger which took so many of the cavaliers to Virginia in an earlier century. That they took good horses with them was a matter of course. And arriving there they found that the native blue grass, which grew plentifully even in the woods, was pasturage upon which horses flourished mightily. The advertisements in the Kentucky Gazette from 1787 to 1805 show that there were many Thoroughbred stallions standing in the neighborhood of Lexington during those years, and not a few of them were imported from England, the others coming from Virginia, the noble pedigrees being printed at full length, with references nearly always to the Newmarket Racing Calendar to substantiate the turf performances of the sires advertised. So Kentucky was prepared with stock of her own to take the place of the Virginia horse breeders when the wasteful methods of agriculture, and the costly habits of hospitality, had impoverished the mother State and made racing a sport too expensive for the depleted purses of the gentlemen who stayed at home. The Sir Archy blood was what the Kentuckians seem to have been after, and soon there was more of it in Kentucky than in Virginia. Some six of Sir Archy’s sons stood in the neighborhood of Lexington at one time, and there were mares there fit to mate with Diomed’s grandsons.

The Whip family were also well represented, and among the other English stallions taken thither may be mentioned Buzzard, Royalist, Dragon, Speculator, Spread Eagle, Forrester, Alderman, Eagle, Pretender, Touchstone and Archer. All a reader, who wishes to go deeper, needs to do is to look at the stud book and see what pure and royal blood the Kentuckians were working with to make that foundation stock which made the State so famous, that at this time there are more Thoroughbreds foaled there than in all the other States of the Union combined.

The breeders there were amateurs, however—men who bred for the love of the horse and the love of sport—until Mr. Robert A. Alexander began his operations at the famous Woodburn farm, where the breeding of Thoroughbreds was more extensively carried on than in any other place in the world. Mr. Alexander was a native Kentuckian, but educated at Cambridge in England. He died at forty-eight, but he gave a great impetus to stock breeding in Kentucky. When I first visited Woodburn, the great Lexington was at the head of the stud. Later Mr. Alexander, as well as his brother and successor, had many other great stallions and brood mares, and colts and fillies from this farm for a score of years captured the richest prizes of the American turf. The history of Woodburn from 1850 to 1880 would almost amount to the same thing as a history of Thoroughbred breeding in Kentucky for that period, though there were many other smaller breeders, as there are now, when the James B. Haggin Elmendorf farm has taken the premier place, and that, too, on a very much larger scale even than Alexander’s Woodburn. As it was in Alexander’s time, however, the smaller breeders, particularly Mr. Keene and Mr. Belmont, are still fortunate in producing most admirable horses; and it will be a bad thing for the Thoroughbred industry in Kentucky when this is no longer so. The result of a monopoly of breeding horses would be the same as the result produced by the trusts in oil, in steel and in beef; the industry would be controlled by one man, or several in combination, and the only competition that would remain would be between the men who attend to the gambling end of the game. This is not likely to happen, unless a corporation be formed to take over the chief breeding farms, for in nine cases out of ten, when an owner dies, his horses are sold and his collection dispersed so as to settle his estate.

After the Gray Eagle-Wagner race, the next one that was watched with breathless interest by the whole country was the match at four-mile heats between Fashion and Boston for $20,000 a side. This was run on Long Island in 1842, and both heats were won by Fashion, the time being 7.32½ and 7.45. The time of this race, it will be seen, was an improvement on that of the Eclipse-Sir Henry race, and also on the time in the race between Gray Eagle and Wagner. It was called a match between North and South, and the North was again the winner. Fashion was bred in New Jersey, and was by Commodore Stockton’s imported stallion Trustee out of the Virginia bred mare, Bonnets o’ Blue. Boston came from Virginia, and was by Timoleon out of Robin Brown’s dam by Florizel. Boston was a grandson of Sir Archy, and foaled in 1833. From the time of his training as a three-year-old until he met Fashion, six years later, he had campaigned all over the country and had meet with almost universal success. He was considered the greatest horse of his day, and there are many students of Thoroughbreds who to-day consider that he was the greatest influence for good of any horse ever bred in this country, greater even than his very wonderful son, Lexington.

The last great race—classic races, the turf writers call them—prior to the Civil War, was at New Orleans, between two sons of Boston—Lexington and Lecompte. The former was out of Alice Carneal by imported Sarpedon, the latter out of Reel by imported Glencoe. This race was in 1854 and, of course, at four-mile-heats, for the Great State Post Stakes. The city of New Orleans, the place of the race, was packed with visitors from all over the country. Lecompte won the two first heats, the time being 7.26 and 7.38¾. Mr. Richard Ten Broeck, the owner of Lexington, was so dissatisfied that he tried to arrange a match with Lecompte. This came to nothing, so he issued a challenge to run Lexington against Lecompte’s time, 7.26, which was the record. This challenge was accepted and the trial was made over the Metarie Course in New Orleans in April, 1855. The most famous jockey of the time, Gil Patrick, was taken from Kentucky to ride Mr. Ten Broeck’s horse, and again the sporting world of the country crowded to New Orleans. Lexington beat the record, doing the four miles in 7.19¾, and Mr. Ten Broeck was $20,000 richer for his belief in his horse. There was at that time, and is now for that matter, a feeling that a record made against time is not so satisfactory as one made in an actual race, so the friends of Lecompte were not cast down by Lexington’s performance. This trial against time took place on the 2d of April. On the 24th of April was to be run the Jockey Club Purse of $1000, and both Lecompte and Lexington were entered. Mr. Ten Broeck and General Wells, the owner of Lecompte, bet $2500 against each other, though in the general betting Lexington was the favorite at $100 to $80. A writer of the day thus describes the race:

“Both animals were in the finest possible condition, and the weather and the track, had they been manufactured to a sportsman’s order, could not have been improved. At last the final signal of ‘Bring up your horses’ sounded from the bugle; and prompt to call Gil Patrick, the well-known rider of Boston, put his foot in Lexington’s stirrup, and the negro boy of General Wells sprang into the saddle of Lecompte. They advanced slowly and daintily forward to the stand, and when they halted at the score, the immense concourse that had, up to this moment, been swaying to and fro, were fixed as stone. It was a beautiful sight to see these superb animals standing at the score, filled with unknown qualities of flight, and quietly awaiting the conclusion of the directions to the riders for the tap of the drum.

“At length the tap of the drum came, and instantly it struck the stationary steeds leaped forward with a start that sent everybody’s heart into his mouth. With bound on bound, as if life were staked on every spring, they flew up the quarter stretch, Lexington at the turn drawing his nose a shadow in advance, but when they reached the half-mile post—53 seconds—both were exactly side by side. On they went at the same flying pace, Lexington again drawing gradually forward, first his neck, then his shoulder, and increasing up the straight side amid a wild roar of cheers, flew by the standard at the end of the first mile three-quarters of a length in the lead. One hundred to seventy-five on Lexington! Time, 1.49½.

“Onward they plunge; onward without pause! What makes this throbbing at my heart? What are these brilliant brutes to me? Why do I lean forward and insensibly unite my voice with the roar of this mad multitude? Alas, I but share the infatuation of the horses, and the leveling spirit common to all strife has seized on all alike. Where are they now? Ah, here they fly around the first turn! By Heaven! Lecompte is overhauling him!

“And so he was, for on entering the back stretch of the second mile the hero of 7.26 made his most desperate effort, reaching first the girth, then the shoulder, then the neck of Lexington, and finally, when he reached the half-mile post, laid himself alongside him, nose by nose. Then the mass, which during the few seconds of this special struggle had been breathless with hope and fear, burst into a shout that rang for miles, and amid the din of which might be heard here and there, ‘One hundred even on Lecompte!’

“But this equality was only for a moment’s term. Lexington threw his eye jealously askant; Gil Patrick relaxed a little of his rein, which up to this time he had held close in hand, and without violence or startling effort, the racer of racers stole ahead, gently, but steadily and surely, as before, until he drew himself a clear length in the lead, in which position they closed the second mile. Time, 1.51.

“Again the hurrah rises as they pass the stand—‘One hundred to seventy-five on Lexington!’—and swells in wider volume when Lexington increases his one length to three from the stand to the turn of the back stretch. In vain Lecompte struggled; in vain he called to mind his former laurels; in vain his rider struck him with the steel; his great spirit was a sharper spur, and when his tail fell, as it did from this time out, I could imagine he felt a sinking of the heart as he saw streaming before him the waving flag of Lexington, now held straight out in race-horse fashion, and anon nervously flung up as if it were a plume of triumph.

“‘One hundred to fifty on Lexington!’ The three lengths were increased to four, and again the shout arose, as in this relative condition they went for the third time over the course. Time, 1.51.

“The last crisis of the strife had now arrived, and Lecompte, if he had any resources left, must call upon them straight. So thought his rider, for the steel went to his sides; but it was in vain, he had done his best, while, as for Lexington, it seemed as if he had just begun to run. Gil Patrick now gave him a full rein, and for a time as he went down the back stretch, it actually seemed as if he were running for the very fun of the thing. It was now $100 to $10 on Lexington, or any kind of odds, but there were no takers. He had the laurel in his teeth and was going for a distance.

“But at this inglorious prospect Lecompte desperately rallied, and escaped the humiliation by drawing himself a few lengths within the distance pole, while Lexington dashed past the stand, hard in hand, and actually running away with his rider—making the last mile in 1.52¼ and completing the four in the unprecedented time of 7.23¾, I say unprecedented, because it beats Lecompte’s 7.26, and is, therefore, the fastest heat ever made in a match.”

I have taken pains to transcribe this account of the race for a double purpose. This race fixed Lexington’s place as the best horse in the country and it was also his last public appearance. Then, again, I think it interesting to show how the reporters of half a century ago dealt with an important sporting event. After this race Lexington was taken back to Kentucky and covered thirty mares without being thrown entirely out of training. It was Mr. Ten Broeck’s intention to take the horse to England and race him there. Unfortunately, exactly how even Mr. Ten Broeck never knew, the horse was over-fed just before a long gallop and went blind, so he never faced a starter after his contest with Lecompte at New Orleans. Mr. Ten Broeck and Mr. A. J. Alexander meeting in England, where Mr. Alexander had gone in search of a stallion for Woodburn, a bargain was struck and Lexington changed hands for $15,000. There never was a horse in Kentucky, or in the world for that matter, that was held in such esteem as was Lexington. The feeling for him was actually one of reverence. I remember being taken to see him when I was a boy by my father. We felt and acted as though we were visiting a shrine. When the sightless veteran was brought from his box it was the most natural thing in the world for us to remove our hats. A few years before I had been taken to the White House to see Mr. Lincoln. Upon my word Lexington to me at the time seemed the greater and more impressive of the two.

This best four-mile record of Lexington lasted for nineteen years, when one-quarter of a second was clipped from it at Saratoga by Fellowcraft, a colt by imported Australian out of Aerolite, a daughter of Lexington. This only lasted two years, when at Louisville it was beaten by Ten Broeck, by Mr. Ten Broeck’s imported Phaeton[^[4]], the dam being Fanny Holten by Lexington. Ten Broeck’s time was 7.15¾. Mr. Ten Broeck, by the way, was the first man to take American horses to race in England. He met with moderate success and thoroughly persuaded the English that we had first class horses in this country. His Prioress ran fifth for the Goodwood Cup, much to the chagrin of the Americans who had backed her heavily. Even the “Autocrat at the Breakfast Table” preached a charming sermon on the occasion. It was left for Mr. Pierre Lorillard and Mr. Keene to win classic events on the other side, the Derby for one, the Grand Prix and Oaks for the other. Lexington’s great influence as a sire was rather through his daughters; when bred to imported English sires they were wonderfully successful in producing winners. The name of Lexington probably recurs more frequently than that of any other horse, except his own ancestors, in American Thoroughbred genealogies.

[4]. This splendid sire was not appreciated in Kentucky until after his death. Lexington lost his eyes through neglect, and Phaeton actually lost his life. So Mr. Ten Broeck had bad luck with the two best sires he ever owned. But Lexington’s loss of his eyesight was probably America’s gain, for it is very unlikely, if this great horse had ever gone to England, that he would have been suffered to return.

During the Civil War the breeding of Thoroughbreds was severely interrupted, as in Kentucky and the South generally there were sterner things to be done. Besides, the armies were always looking for horses without any prejudices against Thoroughbreds, and the guerrilla bands had an absolute fondness for them. It did not cease, but languished. Immediately afterwards it started again, there being many new importations from England, and in 1866 Jerome Park was opened and a new era in racing began. In this new era the first horse to catch the popular affection was Harry Bassett, by Lexington out of Canary by imported Albion. This horse was the people’s idol, and whenever he was to run the accommodations of the race-course were all too small to hold the crowds. As a two and three-year old he won all of his engagements, except the first, in which he started, when a blunder at the post took away his chances. Although bred in Kentucky, the Kentuckians sought a horse to clip his laurels, and the choice fell on old John Harper’s Longfellow, by imported Leamington, dam Nantura (the dam, also, of Fanny Holton, Ten Broeck’s dam). The two met at Long Branch for the Monmouth Cup, two miles and a half, in July, 1872. Longfellow won so easily that it was difficult to believe that Harry Bassett was at his best. And he was not, for two weeks later at Saratoga, for the Saratoga Cup, two miles and a quarter, Bassett won. One of Longfellow’s plates (shoes) became twisted after he had gone a mile and a half, and for the remaining distance the horse had the entire use of only three feet. They never met again. In the stud Longfellow was a great success, and Bassett practically a failure. The whole country watched for intelligence of these two races, and they proved conclusively that the old-time sporting blood of the people was as rich as it had been in the earlier years.

LONGFELLOW AND OLD JOHN HARPER, WITH BOBBY SWIM IN THE SADDLE

By this time the four-mile heat races, indeed, any kind of heat races, were becoming unpopular with the managers of the turf, and both breeders and trainers were called upon to turn out horses that could go shorter distances at an increased rate of speed. Indeed, the English methods were coming more into vogue. That the votaries of the turf might have what they wanted, the breeders imported many new stallions and not a few mares from England. The result was that what was needed for the new style of racing was obtained. I have often had doubts whether this change was a good thing either for the turf or for the breed of horses. The short dashes enable the bookmakers to bet against six races in an afternoon, and so largely increase the toll they levy on the public. The racing stables are enabled to contest for more purses and so increase their earnings. There is a greater demand for race-horses, so the breeders have a larger and a better market. But, after all, the sport of racing is only permitted because it tends to improve the breed of horses; not race-horses alone, but because the Thoroughbred, when crossed with other strains and types, tends to improve those types. Now, does the blood of the new-fashioned horse assimilate so well with the common blood as that of the more compact, and possibly sturdier, horse of thirty or fifty years ago? My opinion is that it does not. The modern race-horse is merely a racing machine, a racing machine very much as a Herreshoff yacht is. The contrast between this racing machine and a Denmark, a Morgan, or even an ordinary trotter is too great, and good results from the crossing of the strains is hardly to be expected; but the tendency is all towards greater speed for shorter journeys, and it will doubtless continue until the men who encourage and insist on the new style of racing bring racing under the ban of the law. Then will come the deluge. The racing machine horses will not be worth their oats, and the race-tracks will be cut up into building lots for suburban villas.

Between 1870 and 1880 the coming of the modern type was clearly indicated, but the horses that were raced in that period were certainly grand specimens. The Bonnie Scotlands were at this time particularly strong. Among these Luke Blackburn, Glidelia, and Bramble were probably the best. It is a pity that Bonnie Scotland did not have a better chance in his earlier career. When he arrived in America it was at Boston, whence he was taken to Ohio. It was only in 1872 that he joined the stud of the Belle Meade Farm in Tennessee. He lived only a few years later, but in 1882 the winnings of his get led the list. It was during this period that Mr. Keene sent Foxall to Europe, where he won the Grand Prix de Paris, was second to Bend Or for the City and Suburban, won the Cesarewitch and other great stakes. Then there were Falsetto, Duke of Magenta, Duke of Montrose, Aristides, Eolus, Grenada, Grinstead, Himyar, Kingfisher, Monarchist, Sensation, Springbok, Tom Ochiltree, Uncas, Virgil, and Spendthrift, the latter seeming to me to best represent the virtues of the old and the new-fashioned horse than any other of this middle period. But Bramble was the most useful of them all, being up to any weight and ready to start every day in the week.

The present period may be said to have begun at Coney Island in 1880. There have been so many wonderfully fast horses developed in this twenty-five years that even to enumerate them and their breeding would take a book by itself. The chief characteristics of the breeding, however, may be said to be in the larger infusions of the English blood, the English having gone into the racing machine business before we did. I shall have to content myself with going along very rapidly now, and mention only those horses and events that have enduring prominence. One of these horses was Hindoo, by Virgil, the winner of many of the greatest stakes, and the sire of Hanover and many another star performer. Thora, by Longfellow, was one of the greatest fillies that ever looked through a bridle, and as a matron is one of the exceptions to the rule that hardly worked race-horses rarely reproduce themselves in their offspring. Miss Woodford, by Billet out of Fancy Jane, came along about this time, and was so splendid a racer that she was more than once barred in the betting as invincible. In 1884 was foaled Hamburg, by Hindoo out of Bourbon Belle. This horse outclassed all of his time, winning thirty-two races out of fifty starts, was thirteen times second, three times third and unplaced only twice. His dam was by imported Bonnie Scotland. We also had Firenzi, Troubadour, The Bard, and Emperor of Norfolk. Among the most notable contests was that between Salvator and Tenny in 1890, over the Coney Island Jockey Club track. Salvator won the Suburban and a challenge was sent by Tenny’s owner for $5,000 a side. Mr. Haggin, Salvator’s owner, accepted. Murphy rode Salvator, and Garrison had the mount on Tenny. When the distance was half over it seemed Salvator’s race in a gallop, but Tenny made up lost ground in the last half, and Salvator won by only half a head. The first mile had been run in 1.39¾, while the mile and a quarter was covered in 2.05. Mr. Haggin, who is said to be the most laconic and imperturbable man alive, is reported to have remarked, with a sigh of relief when the race was finished: “Uncomfortably close.” After this match Salvator made one more distinguished appearance. This was at Monmouth Park, where, in a mile straight away, he ran against time and covered the distance in 1.35½. Salvator was by imported Prince Charlie. Salvator was not a success in the stud.

DOMINO (THOROUGHBRED)
Bred and owned by J. R. KEENE

In 1893 appeared another popular champion in Mr. Keene’s Domino, a son of Himyar out of Mannie Gray. Domino was the perfection of what I have called a racing machine. He won the Futurity at two years old, carrying 130 pounds, but by a very narrow margin. As the chestnut colt Dobbins, by Mr. Pickwick, had carried the same weight and seemed to have gained on Domino in the last few strides, there were many, Dobbins’ owner included, who thought Dobbins the better colt. So it was arranged that they should run a match over the Futurity course, each carrying 118 pounds. They ran like a matched team the whole distance, and the judges not being able to separate them, it was declared a dead heat. The heat was not run off. Domino made a clean sweep of his first season. The next year he went amiss, and was retired to the stud. Though he only had one or two seasons in the harem, he was a success, and his name will be perpetuated in the American Stud Book.

The next great horse after Domino was Hamburg, by Hanover out of Lady Reel by Fellowcraft. This was a phenomenal race-horse during a long career, and his get are now doing him honor on the turf. The colts by imported Watercress have been most distinguished, and one, Waterboy, was the star of his year. Indeed, the horses now winning the laurels seem to be mainly by imported sires, though Ben Brush and Hamburg appear to be holding their own as sires.

These rapidly sketched events I have only meant as illustrations of the four periods in the development of the English Thoroughbred in this country. The first period was Colonial; the second period was up to the Civil War; the third period from the end of the Civil War to 1880, and the fourth from 1880 till the present writing.

CHAPTER FOUR
THE MORGAN HORSE

The Morgan horse is the most distinctive reproducing native type in America, and has been so since the family was recognized as a type in Vermont some seventy-five years ago. For symmetry, docility, intelligence, sturdiness, and speed, the Morgans have been justly famous and have met with the approval of good judges of horse-flesh during the whole of their history. They reached their highest fame during the two decades between 1850 and 1870. After that, both as a type and as a family, they came near perishing, a victim to the desire, which merits the name of craze, to produce trotting horses of phenomenal speed by means of crossing and recrossing with the Hambletonian blood. That there is a revival of Morgan breeding is an excellent thing for the country, for the Morgan is about the best all-round, everyday, general utility horse that this country has had and probably as good as any type in the world.

The renascence of the Morgan horse is due to the horse shows, which have become deservedly popular in many parts of the United States. There are those who speak of the horse shows rather contemptuously as society fads in which the horses exhibited are of secondary importance and interest. To many, who care nothing about horses and know less, it is doubtless true that the social side of horse shows is the important, if not the only side. This attitude, even if it be the attitude of the majority of those who attend the exhibitions, does not detract from the value of the shows so long as the work in the ring be of the right sort, and high standards be established and maintained as to the various classes of horses that are produced in this country. Indeed, it is a good thing for the shows that people with no fondness for or taste in horses should still patronize them, for their money helps pay expenses and makes it possible to offer the handsome prizes which go along with the awards. If the horse shows had done nothing else than stimulate the renewed effort to re-establish the Morgan type they would have served a purpose far from vain.

THE JUSTIN MORGAN TYPE

Twenty years or so ago, when the horse shows began to take the place of the old-time county fairs, the driving horse that was popular in the United States was the Standard Bred Trotter, which usually traced back to Messenger through Hambletonian, who has been celebrated with such insistence of praise as the great begetter of trotters that the majority of Americans believe all that has been said of him as the actual and indisputable truth. It is not a grateful task to destroy established and well-liked fictions, so for the moment I shall pass the Hambletonian fiction by, and devote myself to telling about horses of superior breeding, better manners, higher courage, greater symmetry and above all, a prepotency of blood which reproduces itself in offspring from generation to generation, so that we have in the Morgans an easily recognized and most valuable type. Before going on with my story, however, I must disavow any intention to detract from the merits of those who have bred and trained the wonderful trotters that have, year by year, been clipping seconds off the mile record until the two minute mark has been passed. At the same time I wish to insist that the breeding and training of these phenomenal animals should be left to the very rich, just, for instance, as yacht racing is. The breeding of trotters is far from an exact science, as the trotter, as such, is not a reproducing type, and only two or three in a hundred of the standard breeds ever go very fast, while more of the fast horses among them pace than trot. They are not a type in conformation, in action or in gait; they come in all sizes and all shapes, and are not to be judged by the two or three per cent that develop speed. Moreover, they do not pay. Counting the cost of the ninety-seven or ninety-eight per cent of failures, I venture to say that the production of each successful trotter must cost in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars. Lottery prizes, when lotteries were in vogue, were as high as that; but buying lottery tickets was never considered a good commercial enterprise. I sincerely hope, however, that rich men will continue to breed for extreme speed, as they can afford such costly and interesting experiments. The breeder, however, who wishes to make his stock farm pay, and the ordinary farmer who raises a few colts annually will surely find a more profitable business in trying to secure high-grade Morgans than in pursuing the elusive course which frequently leads to bankruptcy by the well-known Hambletonian road.

The founder of the Morgan type was a horse born somewhere about 1789, and was the property of Justin Morgan, who kept a tavern in West Springfield, Massachusetts, until he moved to Randolph, Vermont, in the year the colt that has perpetuated his owner’s name was foaled. I have examined all the testimony available as to the pedigree of this first Morgan horse, and I must say with regret, but with entire respect for those who have gathered the evidence, that none of it seems to me quite convincing. This was the conclusion of Mr. D. C. Linsley, who published a valuable book in 1857, called “Morgan Horses.” Mr. Linsley in his book printed all the stories and traditions about the breeding of the Justin Morgan with candid impartiality, but he did not decide that any was correct. According to these stories the first Morgan was anything from a Thoroughbred to a Canadian pony. Recently Col. Joseph Battell, of Middlebury, Vermont, himself a breeder of Morgans and the editor and publisher of the “Morgan Horse and Register,” has re-examined all the records extant as to the owner of the first Morgan horse, and he announces, with a thorough belief in his conclusions, that the horse was a Thoroughbred, got by Colonel De Lancey’s True Briton (also called Beautiful Bay and Traveler) out of a daughter of Diamond, also a Thoroughbred. According to the Battell pedigree, Justin Morgan had many infusions of the blood of the Godolphin Barb, the Darley Arabian, and the Byerly Turk, and was worthy to be registered in the stud book established by the Messrs. Weatherby, in England. Indeed, Colonel Battell personally told me that he thoroughly believed in the accuracy of this pedigree, adding, however, “that while the evidence is strong enough to transfer property on, it would not hang a man.”

As I said before, none of the evidence seems quite convincing to me. And no wonder. This horse died in Vermont in 1820, and not until nearly thirty years after was there any systematic effort made to trace his pedigree. During his life he was known only in his own neighborhood where, notwithstanding his acknowledged value as a stallion, he was used the greater part of every year as a common work horse. My own belief is that this horse was very rich in Arab and Barb blood, but not an English Thoroughbred. He had, so far as his history has been told, none of the Thoroughbred characteristics. Nor had his descendants. But whence his ancestors came and where he was born or when are not matters of so much importance as the indisputable fact that his progeny now for a hundred years have had similar excellent characteristics and have remained a fixed type, through good and evil repute, so that we know by what we can see to-day that the old stories and songs of our grandfathers as to the strength, the speed, the beauty and the courage of Morgan horses were more than mere songs and stories—they were the truth put into pleasing form.

This founder of the type, when the property of Justin Morgan, who, after he gave up tavern keeping in Massachusetts, became a schoolteacher, a drawing and music master in Vermont, was called Figure. When the produce of his sons began achieving fame, and the family and type needed a distinctive name, he was called after his old owner (maybe his breeder, for all that I can say to the contrary), Justin Morgan. His most famous son was Sherman Morgan, though there were eight or ten others of his colts kept entire, and the progeny of them have found place in the Morgan Register. Mr. Linsley’s description of the first Morgan is worthy of transcription:

“The original, or Justin Morgan, was about 14 hands high and weighed about 950 pounds. His color was dark bay, with black legs, mane and tail. His mane and tail were coarse and heavy, but not so massive as has sometimes been described; the hair of both was straight and not inclined to curl. His head was good, not extremely small, but lean and bony, the face straight, forehead broad, ears small and very fine, but set very wide apart. His eyes were medium size, very dark and prominent, with a spirited but pleasant expression, and showed no white round the edge of the lid. His nostrils were very large, the muzzle small and the lips close and firm. His back and legs were perhaps his most noticeable point. The former was very short, the shoulder blades and hip bones being very long and oblique, and the loins extremely long and muscular. His body was rather round, long and deep, close ribbed up; chest deep and wide, with the breast bone projecting a good deal in front. His legs were short, close jointed, thin, but very wide, hard and free from meat, with muscles that were remarkably large for a horse of his size, and this superabundance of muscle exhibited itself at every step. His hair was short and at almost all seasons soft and glossy. He had a little long hair about the fetlocks and for two or three inches above the fetlocks on the back sides of the legs; the rest of the limbs were entirely free from it. His feet were small but well shaped, and he was in every respect perfectly sound and free from every sort of blemish. He was a very fast walker. In trotting his gait was low and smooth, and his step short and nervous; he was not what in these days (1857) would be called fast, and we think it doubtful if he could trot a mile much, if any, within four minutes, though it is claimed by many that he could trot it in three.”

So we see that the founder of this great type was, whatever his breeding, a pony of most admirable conformation. In his performances he was the most remarkable horse in the neighborhood of his owner. He won against all comers in the various contests that were indulged in by the somewhat primitive sportsmen of the Green Mountain State. He won at walking, trotting, and running and also at pulling. Besides he was in great demand on muster day as the mount of the commanding officer, who would make a great show on this elegant, graceful, and intelligent horse. So we see the founder was exactly what the Morgans have been and are to-day, a good all-round, general utility horse. And his progeny have been like him. Many of them, however, have been much larger and much faster as trotters, and, as we shall presently see, a breeder of Morgans stands as much chance to produce a very fast trotter as he who breeds with speed alone as his ultimate object.

DUKE OF ALBANY (MORGAN)
Bred by Joseph Battell

Justin Morgan was in the stud for more than twenty years in Vermont, and became the father of many sons and daughters. How many sons were kept entire is not known. Mr. Linsley mentions only six, but Colonel Battell accounts for twelve or fourteen on “information more or less reliable.” Of the daughters we have very little direct information, but that there were many and that they had a great influence on the stock of New England, and particularly of Vermont, is inevitable. The records of most of the sons as sires have not been kept with either fullness or certainty, and the evidence is usually speculative rather than exact. This as a rule; sometimes, however, it is exact. This is the case with some of the progeny of Sherman Morgan, Bulrush and Woodbury Morgan. As to the others—Brutus, Weasel or Fenton Horse, Young Traveler or Hawkins Horse, Revenge, the Gordon Horse, the Randolph Horse, and one or two that went to the neighborhood of Boston—the records are not satisfactory. For instance, here is the kind of story that was once current. Revenge was in the stud at Surrey, New Hampshire, in 1823. The dam of the famous Henry Clay by Andrew Jackson was the noted mare Lady Surrey, foaled about 1824. She was said by some to be sired by Revenge. Mr. Randolph Huntington, the historian of the Clay family of horses and the staunchest advocate of their merits, does not endorse this, as he says that Lady Surrey was a Kanuck, and brought to New York with twelve other horses from the neighborhood of Quebec. Had she been the granddaughter of the original Morgan, the fact would hardly have escaped Mr. Huntington, who has also always been a believer in the Morgan blood. But there is very little profit in discussing or analyzing these old stories. There is no mortal way of getting at the truth, and we can do little more than grant that many of them are not impossible. What is important is that in the course of three horse generations the Morgan was a fixed and reproducing type in Vermont, a type which had attracted the attention of breeders and horsemen all over the country to such an extent that commissioners were sent, even from Kentucky, to examine and report upon the stock.

Sherman Morgan was foaled in 1808, his dam being a Rhode Island mare taken to Vermont in 1799. Of her pedigree nothing is certainly known, but Mr. Sherman, her owner, spoke of her as of Spanish breed, which means that she was, in all probability, a Barb. Her high quality, docility, speed, spirit and stamina have been testified to in unusually trustworthy fashion. She was taller than Justin Morgan, but her colt, Sherman Morgan, was not so tall even as his sire, being only 13¾ hands high, and weighing only 925 pounds. He was worked hard as a young horse on a farm, and for many years also driven in a stage from Lyndon, Vermont, to Portland, Maine. His team mate was another son of Justin Morgan, and the “little team” was famous at every inn between the two ends of the route. In that section Sherman Morgan was the champion runner in the matches at short distances then frequent in the locality. This horse was also known for a time as “Lord North,” but there was no effort to disguise the facts as to his correct lineage. The change of name indicates that in 1823 the true value of the horse as a sire was not fully recognized. He died in 1835, some twenty of his sons being kept entire. As in the case of Justin Morgan we have no records of the females that sprung from Sherman Morgan. His sons averaged 14¾ hands, the average weight being 1020 pounds. Here was distinct improvement in the third generation, and clear evidence also of the prepotency of the blood, together with the value in breeding of the Arab blood when transplanted.

Sherman Morgan’s most famous son was Black Hawk, foaled in 1833, his dam being a large black mare of unknown breeding, but fast and superior in quality. Those who had owned the mare said that she was from New Brunswick or Nova Scotia and of English stock. The pedigree manufacturers—Wallace, particularly—insist that she was a Narragansett pacer, with the evident idea of bolstering up their contention that all fast trotters owe their capacity to trot to the pacing capacity of their ancestors. As not two per cent of Morgans ever pace, including the descendants of Black Hawk, this contention is preposterous, to say the least. Black Hawk’s son, Ethan Allen, was a magnificent roadster, and his great speed in trotting matches did harm, I think, to the perpetuation of the Morgan type, for the Morgan breeders began making efforts to get fast trotters rather than to preserve the type, with the result that there was, in the course of twenty or thirty years, a distinct falling off in the interest that was felt in these very superior horses. Ethan Allen was foaled in 1849 at Ticonderoga, New York, and his dam was said to be an inbred Morgan. The colt certainly had all the Morgan characteristics, and was the fastest stallion of his day, trotting three heats with a running mate when he was eighteen years old in 2.15, 2.16, and 2.19. He was also the most popular public performer of his day; and at that time trotting was more attractive to the people in America than running. “No one has ever raised a doubt as to Ethan Allen being the handsomest, finest-styled and most perfectly-gaited trotter than had ever been produced,” was said by the “American Cultivator,” in 1873. He was a bright bay, a trifle less than 15 hands, and weighed 1000 pounds. He was the sire of a great many colts and fillies, but being kept in training the better part of his life he never had so good a chance as some other horses to become famous as an ancestor. Through his sons, Honest Allen and Daniel Lambert, his name and that of his sire have been kept very much alive in the records, for his descendants have been fleet in the track and most successful in the show ring. His daughters and granddaughters have also done him proud, proving the excellence of the Morgan blood as brood mares. It is only when we get to his generation that the chroniclers take much notice of the importance of the females in perpetuating the Morgan type and family. Honest Allen spent the last ten years of his life at Lexington, Kentucky, and he was mated with many of the best mares in that section, his son, Denning Allen, out of Reta, a granddaughter of Black Hawk, proving himself one of the best speed producing sires the country has had, one of his colts, Lord Clinton, being marvelously fast and courageous.

Woodbury Morgan was the largest of the stallion sons of the original Morgan. He was 14¾ hands, and usually weighed about 1000 pounds. He was in the stud in Vermont for twenty years, and at twenty-two was taken to Alabama, where he died from an injury received in disembarking from the ship that carried him. His sons and daughters in New England helped materially to increase the fame of the type, as they were larger than the other branches of the family, and had in a great degree the characteristic virtues—fearlessness, elegance, speed, stamina, and docility. Three of his sons—Gifford Morgan, Morgan Eagle, and Morgan Cæsar—became famous sires, their sons, grandsons and great-grandsons being reckoned among the best horses in America. One of the grandsons of Gifford Morgan was Vermont Morgan, the sire of Golddust, a horse which established one of the most noted and valuable families of the Morgan strain. Golddust was foaled in Kentucky in 1855, and was at his best during the Civil War, his opportunities being very much curtailed by the unsettled and distressing social conditions which prevailed in the neighborhood where he was owned. But he was a wonderful horse, and having received through his dam another fresh infusion of Arabian blood, his sons and his daughters were rich in that potent quality, without which no equine family or type has ever, in the last few centuries at least, been valuable or permanent. Golddust’s dam was by Zilcaadi, an Arabian horse given to United States Consul Rhind by the Sultan of Turkey. The Golddusts were speedy horses, but speed was not their chief virtue. If Mr. Dorsey, of Kentucky, had not been handicapped by the prevalent prejudice held by the purchasers of roadsters against any other than Hambletonians as fast trotters, he would have been able to perfect a better type of carriage horses than we have in this country, and have got, also, many very fast trotters. Golddust did get fast trotters, but his bent was certainly in another direction which was not followed. He was 16 hands high, and weighed 1250 pounds. He was a bright gold in color—hence his name—and the perfection of symmetry, while his action left nothing to be desired.

The third of the sons of Justin Morgan to establish a distinct Morgan family was Bulrush Morgan foaled in 1812, and living to the great age of thirty-six years. The breeding of the dam of Bulrush Morgan is not known, but she is said to have been a French mare, which I take to mean that she was brought into Vermont from French Canada. This horse left a great many descendants, and they were all singularly alike, generally being deep bays and browns with dark points and a general freedom from any marks, such as white feet or white spots in the face. They were noted also for the absence of spavins and ring bones. They were fast, good all-round horses—good on the road and in the field, in harness and under the saddle. They did not particularly attract the attention of trotting horse people until Bulrush Morgan’s great-grandson, Morrill, began a family of many branches—the Winthrop Morrills, the Fearnaughts, and the Dracos—all of much distinction in that field where fast mile records are considered the highest test of merit.

Suppose that we were to concede that phenomenal speed was the one test of merit for a driving horse and then examine the records. We should find that the majority of the really phenomenal trotters from Ethan Allen’s time till now had in their breeding rich infusions of Morgan blood. As I have said before, Ethan Allen, with no other than Morgan blood that we can account for, was the fastest stallion of his time, and the most popular performer on the trotting tracks, even eclipsing the famous Flora Temple in his ability to excite the enthusiasm of sportsmen by the evenness of his work, the smoothness of his gait, his endurance and courage, and that intelligent docility which made him seem to know in every emergency exactly what he was called on to do. In his great race in 1867, at the Fashion Course on Long Island, when, with a running mate, he met the fleet Dexter, who had taken from Flora Temple her long-maintained fastest record, we are told that forty thousand people had assembled to witness the contest, and the betting was 2 to 1 in favor of Dexter. In Wallace’s “Monthly” of ten years later, there was a description of the race that I venture to reproduce:

JUBILEE DE JARNETTE (MORGAN)
Owned by C. X. Larrabee

“When the horses appeared upon the track to warm up for the race, Dexter, driven by the accomplished reinsman, Budd Doble, was greeted with a shout of applause. Soon the team appeared, and behind sat the great master of trotting tactics, Dan Mace. His face, which has often been a mask to thousands, had no mask over it on this occasion. It spoke only that intense earnestness that indicates the near approach of a supreme moment. The team was hitched to a light skeleton wagon; Ethan wore breeching, and beside him was a great, strong race-horse, fit to run for a man’s life. His traces were long enough to fully extend himself, but they were so much shorter than Ethan’s that he had to take the weight. Dexter drew the inside, and on the first trial they got the ‘send-off,’ without either one having six inches advantage. When they got the word the flight of speed was absolutely terrific, so far beyond anything I had witnessed in a trotting horse that I felt the hair raising on my head. The running horse was next to me, and notwithstanding my elevation in the grand stand, Ethan was stretched out so near the ground that I could see nothing of him but his ears. I fully believe that for several rods at this point they were going a two-minute gait.

“It was impossible that this terrible pace could be maintained long, and just before reaching the first turn, Dexter’s head began to swim, and the team passed him and took the track, reaching the first quarter pole in 32 seconds, with Dexter three or four lengths behind. The same lightning speed was kept up during the second quarter, reaching the half-mile pole in 1.04, with Dexter further in the rear. Mace then took a pull on his team and came home a winner by six or eight lengths in 2.15. When this time was put on the blackboard the response of the multitude was like the roar of old ocean.”

The team also won the next two heats in 2.16 and 2.19, and Wallace is of opinion that the team might have won the first heat in 2.12 had it been necessary. This enthusiastic description of Ethan Allen’s performance was written before Wallace “took a brief” for the Hambletonians. Then he belittled the Morgans in every way, and when reminded of his previous admiration of Ethan Allen, expressed a doubt of his Morgan ancestry. But the Morgans have kept on going fast, when it has happened to be their nature so to do, and that really is as much as can be said of any horses. The dams of the following remarkable performers were of Morgan breeding:—Jo Patchen, Dan Patch, Sweet Marie, Major Delmar, and Lou Dillon, while the only trotting inheritance of Rarus, Fearnaught, and Lord Clinton was from Morgan forebears. The Morgans can go fast enough. There is no doubt about that. But that is not their chief value or their highest merit. Probably not a much greater percentage of Morgans would go phenomenally fast than of Standard Bred Trotters with no Morgan strain, though such a proposition has not been proved; but the Morgans are what the Standard Bred Trotters are not—the Morgans are of a definite reproducing type, and whether they trot in 3.30, 2.30, or 2.00 minutes, they have their typical excellences to recommend them and to give them a value, which no other horse type in America can approach, because they are the best, most symmetrical, most elegant and most docile harness horses in the world, with a stamina and a courage that none but Thoroughbreds approach.

So much importance has been attached to this matter of speed with track records, that I felt obliged to dwell on it somewhat in my discussion of the Morgans. It is really, however, much more interesting than important. The important thing is to get a breed of horses ninety per cent of which can go with reasonable speed, showing a clean, square trot and graceful high action, and when at top speed be free of clicking or forging or interfering, performing in this manner, moreover, without boots or hobbles and without effort, and also without tiring even when the road is long. And in the Morgans we have such a type. That there should ever have been any danger that they might have perished through neglect is a curious chapter in the history of this country. It does not properly belong in this place, but to that other chapter which relates to the chicanery, the delusions and absolute forgeries which are so interwoven with the history of the Standard Bred trotter that good men believe in them though they have been pointed out again and again with elaborate detail and circumstance.

Original lithograph published by Currier & Ives.
ETHAN ALLEN AND RUNNING MATE vs. DEXTER
Mile heats, best three in five heats, Fashion Course, L. I., June 21, 1867. Ethan Allen and mate won in three straight heats. Time: 2.15, 2.16, 2.19.

The Morgans are being bred in many parts of the country, more of them being in the Middle and far West, probably, than in Vermont and the rest of New England. Their blood is closely blended with many of the families of the Kentucky saddle-horses, and goes far in giving finish to that remarkable type, which now furnishes mounts for the great army of American park riders, while pretty nearly all the show winners in the saddle classes come from two or three counties of the beautiful Blue Grass State. The adaptability of the Morgan blood to other crosses is a strong argument in favor of its Arab origin. That its prepotency has continued so long is another argument in favor of the theory that there was other Arab blood brought by the female lines. These speculations and surmises we cannot prove, but as there is now a register we can know about the latter generations, the good qualities of which will, no doubt, show us that we were fortunate in saving this invaluable type before it was too late and madness had done its final work of extermination.

CHAPTER FIVE
MESSENGER AND THE EARLY TROTTERS

One of the most important events in the early horse history of this country was the landing from England in 1788 of the Thoroughbred stallion Messenger, a gray horse that had had some success on the turf in the old world, but was scarcely what might be called great as a race-horse. He was brought over here to be the sire of runners, and he was, to an extent, as both his sons and daughters were good performers. His greatest place in the Thoroughbred records is due to the fact that he was the sire of Miller’s Damsel, the dam of American Eclipse, the horse that upheld the honor of the North in the great contest when Sir Henry represented the South. But before Messenger’s death it had been recognized that when he was bred with the mares of the American basic stock, the produce had a disposition and a capacity to trot faster than was then at all usual. Naturally, therefore, he was used to further this end as much as to sire runners, though there was nothing like a trotting turf in those days, the contests being on the roads under saddle and for considerable distances.

Messenger’s sire was Mambrino, by Engineer; Engineer was by Sampson, and Sampson by Blaze; Blaze by Flying Childers (pronounced by Major Upton in his “Newmarket and Arabia,” “the best horse to be found in the stud book”); and Flying Childers by the Darley Arabian. This is pretty good breeding, as any one will say who is familiar with the early English records as kept by the Messrs. Weatherby. But even Messenger’s title to be a Thoroughbred has been bitterly disputed by the controversialists of recent time, this controversy having been precipitated and intensified when, in the effort to get faster trotters, it was proposed to put in more Thoroughbred blood. The leader of the opposition to more Thoroughbred blood was an able and ingenious writer who has never had his equal in manufacturing pedigrees to suit his own theories, and at the same time please the interests of those who hired him to bolster up the merits of the stock they were breeding to sell. He maintained that the dam of Sampson, the grandsire of Messenger, was a pacing mare, and hence Messenger’s capacity to transmit the trot to his progeny. He further affirmed that the trot and the pace were the same gait; but of this I will speak later when I get to the Standard Bred Trotters. Now, as a matter of fact, the Godolphin progenitor of Messenger through the female line was a Barb, and Barbs are apt to pace, though if Thoroughbreds pace I have yet to see one.

So many fictions have grown up about Messenger that he seems more like a hero of romance than a flea-bitten gray horse of not very fine finish, and worth, according to the records of sales, in the neighborhood of $4500. Indeed, the record of his landing is so obscure that I have not been able to determine whether it was in New York or Philadelphia. But he was in the stud for nineteen years and left many sons and daughters. He was kept in various places—near Philadelphia, on Long Island, in Orange County, New York, and in New Jersey. But in each neighborhood he made an impression on the horses that came after him, an influence which seems to have been both good and enduring.

Trotting and pacing racing in America had been popular even before Messenger’s coming, and long before his get and their get appeared on the road. But the matches were neighborhood affairs and attracted only local attention. There was absolutely no effort at organization and the construction of trotting tracks until many years later. What racing there was was in the hands and under the control of gentlemen; how much interest they took in these trotting and pacing matches I do not know. But not much I fancy, for caste in America was stronger and more separating than it is now, when, if we put the “mighty rich” in a class by themselves there is very little at all. It was not until between 1820 and 1830 that horses were trotted on tracks, and then there was little, if any, of this mile heat business to see really how fast a horse could go for a short distance. What the people of that elder day seemed to be most interested in was how far a horse could trot at a good rate of speed. I will not tire my readers with a recital of the fictions of the contests on the roads of Long Island and Harlem, but begin with the race of Lady Kate under the saddle against time. Her task was to go fifteen miles in an hour. This she did and easily. Nor does it seem much of a task when we consider that a few years later Andrew Jackson was doing mile after mile in much less than three minutes. This horse, by the way, was so superior to the trotters of the time that his owner could make few matches with him. His speed and endurance frightened the others off, and there was little, if any, rivalry. We find it recorded, however, that Paul Pry, in 1833, beat time in an effort to go sixteen miles to the hour, and Hiram Woodruff, then a boy, expressed the opinion that this horse could then have gone twenty miles in the hour. This same old driver tells of a horse which he thought was one of the most superior he ever knew, Top Gallant, by Messenger. This fellow, in his twenty-second year, went four four-mile heats in time very fast for that day. A little later appeared Dutchman, who, in a race of three-mile heats against Rattler, went the distance in 7.45½, 7.50, 8.02 and 8.24, Dutchman won the first and fourth heat, Rattler won the second heat, while the third was a dead heat. Here we see the first heat was trotted at the rate of 2.35, which was surely very fast going, considering the distance, the vehicles used and the shoeing. But such journeys are now considered too far.

Lady Suffolk, an inbred Messenger, was spoken of for a while as the Queen of Trotters, and she was a remarkably good one both in breeding and in performance. She was sired by Engineer II, by Engineer, a son of imported Messenger; her dam was by Don Quixote, son of Messenger. So it will be seen that she was closely inbred to Messenger and had as much of the Thoroughbred blood as any trotting horse of remarkable performance. She was a gray, and was foaled in 1833 on Long Island. She began trotting when she was five years old, and had a remarkably successful career. She trotted 138 races, winning eighty-eight times and receiving forfeit three times. When she was twelve years old, at Beacon Course, Hoboken, she trotted the second heat of a five-heat race in 2.29½, which was the first time 2.30 had been passed, and was, of course, the record. In 1849 she made a saddle record of 2.26. She was bred to Black Hawk in Vermont, but the colt was prematurely born, and she left no descendants. Although this record was reduced in 1849 to 2.28 by Pelham, a converted pacer, another second was knocked off in 1853 by Highland Maid, also a converted pacer, there was nothing in the way of trotters to take the great place of Lady Suffolk until Flora Temple, the queen of them all, came along about 1850, and proceeded to beat all that attempted to rival her for speed and courage.

When I was a boy, Flora Temple was considered almost as great as Lexington. In Kentucky at that time, her wonderful performances, her speed and her courage were considered all the more remarkable from the fact that no one knew how she was bred, and inferred that she had no breeding that was good. This was not a fair inference. Her appearance, her gameness, her fighting qualities, together with her nervousness, all indicated that she was a high-bred animal. To say what that breeding was is another matter. So a pedigree was fixed up for her. On the plate published by Currier and Ives when she was at the very zenith of her fame, her pedigree was set down as follows: “Sired by one-eyed Kentucky Hunter, by Kentucky Hunter; dam Madam Temple by a spotted Arabian horse.” I have no doubt that this pedigree is as arrant nonsense as was ever put in print, and was simply made up to put on the advertisements of the races in which she was entered. I doubt, even, whether there was any serious effort to trace her pedigree when she was a filly, for it was not until she was five years old that she attracted the attention of a horseman and he bought her for $175, and sold her quickly for $350. Previous to that she had been used in a livery stable, though I recall a tradition that she had been used in a milk cart.

Colonel Battell, who spares no pains when he goes after a pedigree, investigated that of Flora Temple, and says it is as follows: “Foaled May, 1845; bred by Samuel Welch, Sangerfield, New York; got by Loomis’s Bogus, son of Lame Bogus, by Ellis’s Bogus, son of imported Tom Bogus; dam Madam Temple, about 850 pounds, bay, foaled 1840, bred by Elijah Peck, Waterville, New York, sold when four months old to William Johnson, of whom she was purchased, 1843, by Samuel Welch, got by a spotted stallion (owned by Horace Terry, who brought him from Long Island or Dutchess County, New York) said to be by a full-blooded Arabian stallion kept on Long Island; second dam described by John I. Peck, son of Elijah Peck, as bay with black points, bob tail, low set and heavy, very smart and would weigh from 1050 to 1175 pounds, foaled about 1834, purchased by Mr. Peck of a Mr. Randall, Paris, New York. Sold when weaning with her dam to Archie Hughes, Sangerfield, who sold her for $13 to Nathan Tracy of Hamilton, New York, who kept her two and one-half years, and sold to William H. Condon, Smyrna, New York, who sold to Kelley & Richardson, livery-stable keepers, Richardson, New York. Mr. Richardson took her with a drove of cattle to Washington Hollow, New York, and sold her for $175 to Jno. Vielee, who took her to New York and sold her to George E. Perrin, for $550, who sold her September, 1850, to G. A. Vogel, for $600. A correspondent of the Spirit of the Times, writing from Waterville, Oneida County, New York, February, 1860, says: “Madam Temple, the dam of Flora, was foaled the property of Elijah Peck, Waterville, Oneida County, New York, in the spring of 1840: her dam was a small but fleet bay mare. Madam Temple was sired by a spotted Arabian stallion brought from Dutchess County, and owned by Horace Terry. Mr. Peck disposed of Madam Temple when four months old for a mere trifle to William Johnson of the same place.... Terry’s spotted Arabian was a remarkably strong, restless, fast-trotting horse, said to have been sired by a full-blooded Arabian stallion on Long Island. He was a great favorite in this section, and his stock for general use possesses probably more excellent qualities than that of any other horse known in this vicinity. They were uniformly strong, with rare speed and bottom. The general high reputation in which his stock was held may be judged from the fact that George W. Crowningshield, of Boston, owned a pacing gray mare of his get, so fast and enduring that he sold her for $1500. That was considered very high in those days. Madam Temple has always been regarded as a remarkable roadster. Mr. Hughes sold her in 1846 to G. B. Cleveland, Waterville, who soon parted with her to N. W. Moss of the same place, but now of Osage, Iowa. By him she was kept as a horse of all work for several years, from whom she was purchased by James M. Tower in the spring of 1854, and he subsequently sold to H. L. Barker, of Clinton, Oneida County, New York, in January, 1855, who now owns her. Flora was her first colt. Her second a horse colt, was foaled in the spring of 1855, and was bought by J. W. Taylor, of East Bloomfield, for R. A. Alexander, of Woodford County, for $500. This colt was sired by H. L. Barker’s Edwin Forrest (a Kentucky colt), now owned by S. Downing, Lexington, Kentucky.”

So we can take our choice of pedigrees. If Flora Temple had been born a few years later the Hambletonian advocates would surely have claimed her. It has always been a wonder to me that they did not, after all, assert that she was of collateral blood. When her new owner brought this most remarkable mare to New York, he had not the most remote idea that he held one of the wonders of the world. He believed that she was a pretty good pony, and could strike a good clip on the road. She was only 14.2 hands high and had a mere stump of a tail. Besides, she was nervous, and before she “found herself” had a rather choppy action. When she had learned the trick, however, her action was smooth and clock-like, and she glided along with almost unapproachable grace. Moreover, when she broke she lost scarcely nothing, as she did not have to be pulled back almost to a standstill, but caught her trotting stride from what was very like a run.

There are other books in which the record of Flora Temple can be found in all of its proud and brilliant details. She beat everything of her day, beginning with the Waite Pony on the Bloomingdale road in 1850, until Ethan Allen, Princess, George M. Patchen and all the good ones had to take her dust. She was not used under the saddle, but always to sulky or wagon. Hiram Woodruff, her first real trainer, says she was a great weight puller and was not in the least bothered by a 350 pound wagon, but went along with it as merrily as though she were in a racing sulky. Her first defeat was in 1853 by Black Douglas, a son of Henry Clay; but a few months later she had her revenge and beat the Clay stallion with apparent ease. In 1856 she took the trotting record away from Highland Maid by covering a mile in 2.24½. The record remained with her for eleven years; she reduced it in 1859 to 2.19¾, and so she was the first to trot better than 2.20, as Lady Suffolk was the first to go below 2.30. In 1859 the little bay stump-tail mare was at the very zenith of her fame, though Hiram Woodruff was of opinion that the next year she might have surpassed this. The next year the Civil War broke out and she, not being in good form, was retired to the breeding farm of Aristides Welch, near Philadelphia.

During the two or three last years of her public life, Flora Temple had nothing to beat, so she was sent all over the country “hippodroming” with Princess and George M. Patchen, variously. On the farm she dropped a few colts. Two were by sons of Hambletonian, and one by imported Leamington. They have not done much to perpetuate her prowess. My own idea is that in selecting mates for her the great cardinal principle of breeding: “like begets like,” was utterly disregarded. The blood of a Hambletonian was probably too cold to mate with hers, though we do not know what hers was, and Leamington’s conformation was too great a contrast. Though she has left no descendants that do her particular honor, she has left by her performances imperishable fame as the greatest trotter of her day, and her day lasted for more than a dozen years.

There was a lull in trotting during the Civil War, just as there was in racing, but after the war the trotting tracks became even more popular than the running courses—not the most fashionable, but the most popular. Fashion has never forsaken the running horse, and probably never will; but in the main, the trotting races have been patronized and managed by men of a slightly different social status. To be sure, there are notable exceptions, exceptions so notable, indeed, that they ought to be sufficient to lift the ban from the trotting world; but they have never been able to do it. And even during the ten years after the Civil War, when trotting was immensely popular, it was considered slightly a reproach to be interested in the sport. It was during this period that Dexter took the trotting primacy away from Flora Temple, and the tribe of Hambletonian came into such prominence that the legislators who framed trotting-match rules, established a register and made laws fixing a standard entitling a stallion or a mare to a place in these sacred books. And so the “Standard Bred Trotter” came into being, and his has been a long day—his advocates and admirers say a great day.

CHAPTER SIX
RYSDYK’S HAMBLETONIAN AND THE STANDARD BRED TROTTERS

After Dexter, in 1867, took away from Flora Temple the trotting record by doing a mile in 2.17¼, his reputed sire, Rysdyk’s Hambletonian was held in such high esteem by those trying to breed fast trotters, that they considered any horse not by him or of his breed to be not in the least worth while in any attempt to improve these light harness horses. So it is quite impossible to treat of the Standard Bred Trotters without also treating of Rysdyk’s Hambletonian. There are many who do not, and never have, agreed with the Hambletonian admirers, and as I am one who once believed in the fictions as to his breeding and other excellences, I propose to be perfectly fair by giving both sides of the story of a horse that cuts a most considerable figure in American horse annals. Now, here is one side of the Hambletonian story, and I take the liberty of quoting from Mr. Hamilton Busbey, a noted writer on trotting horses, and the editor of a paper devoted to trotting horse interests. He says:

“Lewis G. Morris bred a mare by imported Sour Crout to Messenger, and the produce in 1806 was a bay colt who developed into a horse of 16 hands, and is known to history as Mambrino. He was never trained in harness, but was a natural trotter. Betsey Baker, the fastest mare of her day was sired by him. Amazonia, a snappy chestnut mare of 15.3 hands, showing quality, but of untraced blood, and who could trot to 2.50 was bred to Mambrino, and whose outcome was Abdallah, whose register number is 1. He was bred by John Tredwell, of Saulsbury Place, Long Island, was foaled in 1823, and developed into a bay horse of 15.3. As a four-year old, he trotted a mile in 3.10, but was not kind in harness, and was principally used under saddle. He made seasons on Long Island, in New Jersey, and in Orange County, and spent 1840 in the Blue Grass Region of Kentucky. In 1830 he passed to Isaac Snediker, and after many changes of fortune died of starvation and neglect on a Long Island Beach, and was buried in the sand....

RYSDYK’S HAMBLETONIAN

“The Charles Kent mare was a bay of 15.3 hands, foaled in 1834, with powerful stifles, and as a four-year old trotted a mile under saddle in 2.41. She was by Bellfounder, a Norfolk trotter of 15 hands, imported from England to Boston in 1822, by James Bort. Imported Bellfounder was foaled in 1815, and the blood of his sire, Bellfounder, is at the foundation of the hackney breed. One Eye, a determined mare by Bishop’s Hambletonian (son of Messenger), out of Silvertail, a hardy brown mare by Messenger, was the dam of the Charles Kent mare, who found a happy nick in Abdallah.

“The fruit of this union was a bay colt, foaled May 5, 1849, at Sugar Loaf, near Chester, Orange County, New York. This colt, when five weeks old, was purchased from the breeder, Jonas Seely, by a plain farmer with a lean pocket-book. The price named for mare and colt was $125, and the farmer, William M. Rysdyk, sat on the top rail of a fence and pondered for some time the vital question. The outlay would embarrass him if the mare or colt should die. He finally said yes, and the mother and son were taken to Chester. The bay colt, with star and hind ankles white, grew into a powerful horse 15.2, and was named Hambletonian. His head was large and expressive, his neck rather short, his shoulders and quarters massive and his legs broad and flat. His triple line to thoroughbred Messenger, over the substance imparting cross of Bellfounder, gave us the greatest progenitor of harness speed the world has seen.”

I once believed all this just as sincerely as I am sure Mr. Busbey believes it, and, some ten years ago, I wrote this fiction about Hambletonian:

“Messenger begat Mambrino, and Mambrino begat Abdallah, and Abdallah begat Hambletonian. Now, the race may be said to have fairly begun, for there is scarcely a trotting horse in America which has not in its blood one, two, or three strains of this Hambletonian blood, for Hambletonian was the great-sire of trotters. He was a Messenger on both sides, great-grandson in the male line, and grandson and great-grandson in the female line, from which also came a new English cross, for his dam was by the imported hackney Bellfounder.[^[5]] In him the Messenger blood was strong, and, himself a trotter of much speed, though never trained, he had the capacity of transmitting the trotting gait in a greater degree than any horse in history.”

[5]. No human being in the world knows anything whatever about the breeding of the Charles Kent mare, Hambletonian’s dam.

There are a good many misstatements in that paragraph; but when I wrote it I was deceived by the false pedigrees which have been manufactured and recorded in the trotting-horse registers and stud-books. The truth is, that Hambletonian was a bull-like horse that was trained by Hiram Woodruff, but could never develop a speed equal to a mile in three minutes—3.18, to be exact, being the best mile he ever did. As to his pedigree: Mambrino, the grandsire, was by Messenger; but he was worthless and also vicious. He could neither run nor trot. He was bred by Louis Morris, of Westchester County, New York, and sold to Major William Jones of Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. As he was worthless and a serious disappointment, Major Jones virtually gave him away, and he was used as a traveling stallion at a small fee. John Treadwell, a Quaker farmer near Jamaica, Long Island, had two Conestoga[^[6]] or Pennsylvania Dutch draft-mares. Out of one of these mares, by Mambrino, was born Abdallah. This horse was so bad-tempered that he could never be broken to harness, but was ridden under the saddle. He had no speed either as a runner or trotter, not being able to do a mile in four minutes at any gait. He had a mule-like head and ears, a badly ewed neck, and a rattail. But he was a Messenger, despite the Conestoga crossing, and he was sold to Kentuckians for $4500. In less than six months the Kentuckians repented of their bargain, and sold him back to New Yorkers for $500—Messrs. Simmons & Smith, Bull’s Head dealers, buying him as a speculation. No purchaser could the speculators find at any price, and the stallion was virtually given away to stop expenses of keeping. About this time Charles Kent wanted a new horse for his butcher wagon, and traded, through Alexander Campbell, of Bull’s Head, his worn out mare to Edmund Seeley, a farmer in Orange County, New York, for a steer for butchering. The butcher’s mare had, originally, been sold to him by Campbell, who had obtained her in a drove of western horses, paying $40 for her. Her pedigree was quite unknown. This mare is known in American horse history as the Charles Kent mare, and is said to be by imported Bellfounder. She was in foal to Abdallah when Seeley got her, and the colt and mare became the property of Bill Rysdyk, a hired man on Seeley’s farm. Rysdyk looked around for a name for his colt—a name which should indicate the Messenger blood in him. There had been in the early years of the century a famous son of Messenger named after Alexander Hamilton. This horse finally became known as Bishop’s Hamiltonian. In his effort to borrow the name, Rysdyk, being weak in his orthography, called his horse Rysdyk’s Hambletonian. And so he lives in history—false in his pedigree as in his name. The public of that day believed this horse to be a son of Bishop’s Hamiltonian, and for the sake of the Messenger blood he was served to the best mares in Orange County, and Orange County was rich in the Arab and Barb blood of the daughters and granddaughters of that great and unbeatable trotting horse, Andrew Jackson. No stallion ever had a better chance, and it was almost impossible that there should not have been good horses among his get. And there were. But the bad blood of his ancestry, sire and grandsire being worthless degenerates, together with the utterly unmixable Conestoga blood in his grandam, have been continually cropping out in his progeny—for faults more readily reappear than perfections—until now, when it must be acknowledged that the boasted horse type of which he is said to be the founder is no type at all.

[6]. I had a friend who was with the Confederate Cavalry when Lee invaded Pennsylvania to meet defeat at Gettysburg. He told me that the sleek, large Conestoga horses that were abundant in the section traversed were too tempting to be neglected, so many of the cavalry men abandoned their lean and battle scarred mounts and replaced them with the Conestogas. Before they reached the Potomac on their retreat southward, these cold blooded draft horses were completely used up and the soldiers swore at themselves for their folly in making the exchanges. The Conestogas are good draft horses and serviceable on farms where no quick work is required, but they are totally lacking in speed and the courage and stamina which speed requires. A more impossible cross than that between a Conestoga and a Thoroughbred could hardly be imagined.

When the pedigree manipulators were manufacturing this line of descent for Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, Alexander Campbell, of Bull’s Head, was offered a thousand dollars to certify to the stated pedigree of the Charles Kent mare. Campbell declined, and ordered the Hambletonian emissaries out of his office. Here is another rather amusing evidence of the careful way in which the pedigree of Hambletonian was bolstered up. There was no such horse as Bishop’s Hambletonian. The horse alluded to was Alexander Hamilton, or Bishop’s Hamiltonian. Nobody ever thought of calling a Hamiltonian a Hambletonian until old Bill Rysdyk did it, simply because he was not gifted in the art of spelling. But this did not bother the record makers. They simply misspelled the name of the elder horse. Surely old Bill Rysdyk laid a spell on the gentlemen of the press, and he kept it to the end as his horse, shaped like a cart horse, rather than one filled with high blood, was a great money-maker in the stud. His earnings by the record were $184,725.

When there was a great many men interested, and most sincerely, too, in the breeding of trotters, it was thought to be a good thing to inaugurate a systematic method of breeding and establish a standard which should regulate the records that were to be kept of trotters. By general consent the suggestion of the Turf, Field and Farm, Mr. Busbey’s paper, a horse that could go a mile in 2.30 was considered worthy to get a place in the register. This would have excluded all the trotters previous to the time of Lady Suffolk. But the matter was discussed, and Wallace’s “American Trotting Register” was accepted as the official record of pedigrees, thus putting the business in the hands of the most ingenious partizan that has ever been interested in the horse business in this country. These were the rules that were adopted:

“In order to define what constitutes a trotting-bred horse, and to establish a Breed of trotters on a more intelligent basis, the following rules are adopted to control admission to the records of pedigrees. When an animal meets with the requirements of admission and is duly registered, it shall be accepted as a standard trotting-bred animal.

“First—Any stallion that has, himself, a record of two minutes and thirty seconds (2.30) or better; provided any of his get has a record of 2.40 or better; or provided his sire or his dam, his grandsire or his grandam, is already a standard animal.

“Second—Any mare or gelding that has a record of 2.30 or better.

“Third—Any horse that is the sire of two animals with a record of 2.30 or better.

“Fourth—Any horse that is the sire of one animal with a record of 2.30 or better; provided, he has either of the following additional qualifications:—

“1. A record himself of 2.40 or better.

“2. Is the sire of two other animals with a record of 2.40 or better.

“3. Has a sire or dam, grandsire or grandam, that is already a standard animal.

“Fifth—Any mare that has produced an animal with a record of 2.30 or better.

“Sixth—The progeny of a standard horse when out of a standard mare.

“Seventh—The progeny of a standard horse out of a mare by a standard horse.

“Eighth—The progeny of a standard horse when out of a mare whose dam is a standard mare.

“Ninth—Any mare that has a record of 2.40 or better; and whose sire or dam, grandsire or grandam, is a standard animal.

“Tenth—A record to wagon of 2.35 or better shall be regarded as equal to a 2.30 record.”

Before much had been accomplished under these rules, Wallace, who was as militant as he was ingenious, got into a dispute with the Kentucky breeders over methods of breeding, the value of thoroughbred blood, the genuineness of his published pedigrees and about anything else that came along. So the Kentuckians started the “Breeders’ Trotting Stud Book,” the standard for it being a little modified. In a year or so, Wallace, seeing that the war was going against him, sold out his register and retired from the field. Then new rules were adopted, as follows: