CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DENMARK, OR KENTUCKY SADDLE-HORSE
The assessed value of horses tabulated by States would make it appear that Kentucky horse-flesh was not more precious than in other parts of the Union. And yet Kentucky horses have a fame that is not approached by those of any other state. This is due to the fact that in a small section of the state, none but horses of high breeding are reared. A few counties give to the whole state a reputation which, I am afraid, the whole state does not deserve. But in the famous Blue Grass region the noblest horses of several types and kinds have been bred for more than a hundred years. It is distinctively the breeding place in America of the English Thoroughbred, and comparatively few men who have gone into the reproduction of these interesting and fleet animals have refrained sooner or later from buying or renting farms in Central Kentucky to carry on their operations. So, also, with the trotters. Indeed, it has been maintained that in this lime stone region, where blue grass is indigenous and where it was found in abundance in the park-like woods by the early explorers that the very bones of horses that had grazed upon it from infancy were harder, stouter and less sponge-like than those from anywhere else. This much for the virtue of the lime stone nurtured merits of the blue grass.
But the people have had much to do with the excellence of Kentucky horses. They seem to have been by nature interested in the breed of horses from the beginning of their settlement there. One of the first records of the Colonial era is that of a Kentuckian who was killed by an Indian while training a race-horse on a frontier race-course. And among the seven first statutes enacted by the Colony when in preparation to become a state of the Union, was one to regulate the range and improve the breed of horses. They were horse lovers in Kentucky in the beginning as they are to-day. And to-day there is no crime that is looked upon with more contempt than to misrepresent the breeding of a horse. In Kentucky a gentleman may kill another gentleman if his cause be just, and suffer no reproach save that of himself; but if he palter with the pedigree of a horse he trifles with his caste, and is ranked with the sneak thieves and the pickpockets who take their victims unaware, and achieve at once a petty and cowardly advantage. This love of the horse and knowledge of him has gone on from generation to generation until it has become a part, and no inconsiderable part of the heritage of every Kentuckian who considers himself well born.
Some twenty years ago a Kentucky horse-breeder was in Boston, visiting a gentleman with whom he had business. The Bostonian, with the characteristic hospitality of those Dr. Holmes catalogued as of the “Brahmin caste,” showed the Kentuckian about. He pointed out to him the equestrian statue of Washington at the head of Commonwealth Avenue. “There is the Washington statue,” remarked the Bostonian. “And what was the breeding of the horse?” the Kentuckian inquired. The horse to him was almost everything. And, later in the day, when dinner was over at the hospitable Bostonian’s home, and the ladies and children were retiring, the Kentuckian leaned over to his host and said, with enthusiasm: “By Gad, Colonel, you have outbred yourself.” That was a heartfelt tribute expressed in the natural way in which a Kentuckian should speak. No wonder that they have fine horses when they give so much thought to this subject of breeding.
A GROUP OF DENMARK MARES AT PASTURE IN KENTUCKY
But for all this Kentucky has produced only one distinctive reproducing type. Her trotters—if type they be—belong as much elsewhere as to Kentucky; her runners are purely English. Her Denmarks, however, belong to Kentucky. They have been bred there for more than sixty years, and as a distinctive American type, they are second only in this country to the Morgans of Vermont. It is a singular fact and not unworthy of note that only two states have produced distinct American reproducing types, Vermont and Kentucky, and those were the first two states admitted to the Union after the original thirteen got ready to embrace other sisters.
It is most curious how a type happens. The Morgans, as has been shown in a previous chapter, came from a horse whose pedigree was not even considered, and to this day is known only by conjecture and not at all by established fact. He was considered a good horse in his day, but it was not until his sons begat colts of exceptional merit that it was thought worth while to inquire into his origin, and that of his antecedents. With Denmark it was, in a degree, different. Denmark was a Thoroughbred, though some who are over-critical, quarrel with the pedigree of his dam. Let that be as it may. In 1839, when he was foaled, begat by Imported Hedgeford out of Betsey Harrison, he was about as good a Thoroughbred as the generality of those we had in America. Moreover, he was a successful contestant on the turf and a good horse at four-mile heats. These disputes as to the purity of the blood of our early horses are rather academic than practical. In all of the early race-horses, not purely English, there were infusions of the American basic blood; and for that matter this was the case also in England, where the Thoroughbred at that time was only newly evolved with the aid of Oriental blood from the native strains. Here, however, is his pedigree of Denmark traced back for several generations:
| Imp. Hedgeford | Fihlo-da-puta | Haphazard | Sir Peter | Highflyer |
| Papillon | ||||
| Miss Hervey | Eclipse | |||
| Clio | ||||
| Mrs. Barnet | Waxy | Pot-8-os | ||
| Maria | ||||
| Daughter | Woodpecker | |||
| Heikel | ||||
| Miss Craigie | Orville | Benningbrough | King Fergus | |
| Daughter | ||||
| Evelina | Highflyer | |||
| Termagant | ||||
| Marchioness | Lurcher | Dungannon | ||
| Vertumus | ||||
| Miss Cogden | Phenomenon | |||
| Daughter | ||||
| Betsey Harrison | Aratus | Director | Symmes' Wildair | Imp. Fearnaught |
| Jolly Roger Mare | ||||
| Eclipse Mare | Harris' Eclipse | |||
| Daughter | ||||
| Betsey Haxall | Imp. Sir Harry | Sir Peter Teazle | ||
| Matron | ||||
| Saltram Mare (Timoleun's dam) | Imp. Saltram | |||
| Daughter | ||||
| Jenny Cockracy | Potomac | Imp. Diomed | Florizel | |
| Sister to Juno | ||||
| Fairy | Pegasus | |||
| Nancy McCullock | ||||
| Saltram Mare (Timoleun's dam) | Imp. Saltram | Eclipse | ||
| Virago | ||||
| Daughter | Symmes' Wildair | |||
| Daughter |
That is pretty good breeding, even though the ancestors of Potomac might not pass muster with those who look very closely back through the sixteen generations. It may be that this so-called “cold-streak” in Denmark, through his maternal great grandsire, was just what was needed when he was mated with the Kentucky mares whose produce has given him enduring fame.