The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development

by John Hankins Wallace

“The Darley Arabian” was contemporaneous with the Bald Galloway, and they commenced service in England about the same year. It is said he was brought from Aleppo, in Syria, or, perhaps I had better say Asia Minor. Aleppo is but a short distance from the borders of ancient Cappadocia and Cilicia, countries that were famous in history for the great numbers of fine horses that they produced far more than a thousand years before the first horse was taken to Arabia. This horse is called an “Arabian,” and in the brief record of his importation we have the same venerable “chestnut” served up to us that has served so many generations of speculators in “Arabian blood.” The record says that Mr. Darley had a brother who was an agent for merchandise abroad, who “became a member of a hunting club, by which means he acquired interest to procure this horse.” This “gag” has been played too often to give éclat to horses claimed to be brought from Arabia, in the past two hundred years, to have much effect on the minds of people who have any sense. That it required great social or political influence to induce the old Arab sheik to part with him, was intended merely to secure the attention of prospective customers to his superlative excellence in order to obtain their patronage. This horse probably never was within five hundred miles of the nearest part of Arabia, and to call him an Arabian is a misnomer wholly unjustifiable. He came from a country where horses were abundant and cheap on all sides, and of a quality far superior to any Arabian. He was simply a Turk, he was for sale, and it required no influence to buy him except the contents of the purchaser’s purse. This horse has always been classed as one of the two great founders of the English race horse. His progeny from well-bred mares were not numerous, and his greatest distinction is in the fact that he was the sire of Flying Childers. In accordance with the truth, he should be known in the records as “Darley’s Turk.”

The horse bearing the dishonest misnomer of “Godolphin Arabian” was really the greatest regenerator and upbuilder of the running horse that England ever possessed. There seems to be no historical doubt that he was brought from France, and that is all we know about his origin and early history. It may be laid down, therefore, as a safe proposition, that the odds are as a thousand to one that he was a French horse. The only evidence that can ever be furnished as to the strain of blood that he may have possessed must be found and studied in his portrait, which appears in this volume. I believe this portrait to be a correct and true delineation of the horse, and there is not a single lineament in or about it that indicates the blood of either the Arabian or the Barb. His pedigree is in his picture, and, from what is known in history and from what has been preserved in art, instead of “Godolphin Arabian” his true title should be “Godolphin Frenchman.” But this subject has been discussed at greater length in the chapter on the English Race Horse, to which my reader is here referred.

In the chapter on the American Race Horse, I think sufficient attention has been given to the frauds and impossibilities that are to be found everywhere in the extended pedigrees of our own running horses to satisfy any one that the remote extensions of pedigrees are a great mass of dishonest rubbish, with scarcely a speck of truth to be found. I will, therefore, pass along to the consideration of some of the difficulties, of the same nature, that have been developed in investigating and recording the pedigrees of the American Trotting Horse. In entering the untrodden wilderness of trotting-horse history it became the ambition of my life to reach the truth in every possible instance and to cut off and reject all frauds wherever they showed their heads. This meant war from the beginning with a great many horsemen, but it also meant the enthusiastic support of a great many honest men. The trouble, at this point, was in the fact that a number of prominent, wealthy and influential breeders insisted upon their right to state their pedigrees in their own way and thus compel me to indorse them by inserting them in the Trotting Register. When at work on the early volumes of the Register, especially the first, if a man of unblemished reputation and intelligence sent me a list of his stock to be registered, I assumed that he had too much regard for his reputation and standing as a breeder to print a lot of pedigrees in his catalogue that he did not know to be correct, and hence I accepted many a pedigree that was based upon fiction. In course of time it began to dawn upon my understanding that there were many men in the world of unsullied reputation, as they were known in their business relations, who would stand up boldly for a fiction or a fraud in the pedigrees of their stock. It is but just to say that all the men who uttered fraudulent pedigrees were not equally guilty, for in some cases the owners had been victimized by unscrupulous rogues from whom they had purchased, and in others they had been betrayed by the still more unscrupulous rogues whom they had employed to make up their catalogues on the supposition that they were capable and honest. This state of things soon developed another line of thought and observation in my mind which evolved a rule by which I could determine the difference between the degrees of honesty among horsemen. One man, when a fiction in a pedigree was pointed out, would go to work and carefully investigate it; while another would hang and higgle about it and finally investigate, not to find the truth, but to find how many old rummies, swipes and negroes he could get together, who would support his claim and swear to it for a half-dollar each. The first man investigates to find the truth wherever it may lead; while the second man investigates merely, not to find the truth, but to find some kind of evidence to sustain the untruth. In the everyday affairs of life these two men may stand on the same plane, but, at heart, the one is honest and the other a rogue.

When Mr. Charles Backman founded the great Stonyford breeding farm in Orange County, New York, he was an excellent horseman, in a general sense, although he did not pretend to know much about pedigrees. About 1869 he placed all his pedigrees in my hands with the request that I would give them a careful examination, strike out everything that was wrong and note everything that was doubtful or uncertain, that it might be investigated and the truth fully determined, no difference where it might lead. Many investigations followed which were conducted by his secretary, Mr. Shipman, either by mail or by personal visitation—so many, indeed, that Mr. Shipman became quite an expert in this kind of difficult work. As an illustration of the methods pursued, one instance will serve to show how it was done, and more than this, it is a very interesting history in itself. In the first volume of the Register I had entered Green Mountain Maid, the dam of the famous Electioneer and all that family, as “by Harry Clay, dam said to be by Lexington.” This was the form in which Mr. Backman had received the pedigree, except that it was stated positively and without any “said to be” that the dam was by Lexington, the great running horse. After a time I called Mr. Backman’s attention to this “said to be” and suggested that if the mare was really a daughter of Lexington she could certainly be traced and established. The next day, Mr. Shipman started to Western New York and to Ohio. On his trip he found the mare had been known in Western New York as the “Angelica Mare” and afterward as “Shanghai Mary,” that she was a trotter, well known locally, and that she had trotted a race and won at a State fair, in very fast time for that day. She had been brought from Ohio by some sheep-dealers, who were able to give her exact age, and it was thus found that she was older than her reputed sire. Several expert horsemen, from a picture secured by Mr. Shipman on his trip, have not hesitated to give it as a strong conviction that she belonged to the Cadmus family, in Southern Ohio. In the last two or three years a correspondent of the Chicago Horse Review brings out some local facts that make it almost morally certain that she was bred by Goldsmith Coffein, of Red Lion, Ohio, and that she was got by Iron’s Cadmus, the sire of the great Pocahontas. The final nail has not been clinched in establishing this pedigree, and probably never will be, but the circumstances are so fully detailed as to scarcely leave room for a doubt that she was a half-sister to the famous Pocahontas.

From what has here been said about the methods of Mr. Backman, the leading breeder of that period, in the North, it should not be inferred that all Northern breeders were like him. The first real battle I ever had against fraudulent pedigrees originated in Orange County, New York, with the notorious Captain Rynders, in which the pedigree of the once famous Widow Machree, the dam of Aberdeen, was involved. The pedigree of this mare had been registered as obtained from Mr. James W. Hoyt, who once owned her, and her dam was given as by Durland’s Messenger Duroc. When Aberdeen came before the public for patronage, his owner, Rynders, advertised him as out of Widow Machree and she out of a mare by Abdallah. This was challenged as untrue by Mr. Guy Miller and Mr. Joseph Gavin, of Orange County, and I was called upon to demand the evidence upon which the change had been made from Messenger Duroc to Abdallah. As a matter of course “the fat was in the fire” at once, and out came Rynders with a terrific explosion of anger, abounding in threats and denunciations against anybody and everybody who attempted to interfere with his “business.” The good names of Guy Miller and Joseph Gavin carried too much weight as against that of Isaiah Rynders, and, as his last card, he brought out a duly and formally executed affidavit, sworn to by a man whose name I will not here mention, stating that he bred the Abdallah mare; all of which was the very rankest perjury, which was so easily exposed that it did Rynders far more harm than good. At last the whole truth came out in a form that was complete and conclusive, showing that the mare in question was bred by Garrett Duryea, of Bethel, Sullivan County, New York, and was got by a horse known as Pintler’s Bolivar. Rynders had been a leader in New York politics so long that he knew just how to manage things where the truth must be suppressed. He was a liberal advertiser, the two sporting papers were needy for patronage in that line, and their columns were closed to any and all communications against his side of the question. But all this failed to suppress the truth and uphold a fraud, and I doubt whether there is a man living to-day who does not believe that the fight was fairly and honestly won. This contest taught me a very important lesson, and that was, that if I expected to fight bogus pedigrees I must have a channel of communication of my own. Hence Wallace’s Monthly, which, in its day, was not only able to expose bogus pedigrees, but lead intelligent thought and experience on all breeding subjects, till it fell into the hands of an unscrupulous neocracy, where it soon died for want of brains.

Having given a very brief illustration of the methods which governed Mr. Backman in ascertaining and determining the blood elements which entered into the foundation of his great breeding establishment, and the care and promptness with which errors were eliminated, it is now in order to take a glance at the methods pursued at the great Woodburn Farm, founded by R. A. Alexander in Kentucky. These were the two earliest establishments, of any prominence, for breeding the trotter, in the whole country. The one was the northern center of the interest and the other the southern, and they together may be considered as representative of both sections. Mr. Alexander, I think, was reared and educated in Scotland, and there inherited a large estate. Upon coming into this inheritance he determined to transfer his interests to Kentucky, where he bought up a cluster of farms and shaped them for the purpose of building up a mammoth establishment for the breeding of all varieties of domestic animals of the highest type and excellence. I think his fancy ran more to Short Horn cattle than to any other line of breeding, probably because he knew more about the value and merit of the different tribes of that breed than he did of any other variety. The founding of an establishment so immense, and for the grand purpose of the breeding and improving the varieties of domestic animals, was the agricultural sensation of the period, and everybody, from one end of the land to the other, soon knew of and applauded the great enterprise. There had been great enterprises on similar lines before, and there have been even greater ones since, but Mr. Alexander’s Woodburn Farm, of Kentucky, may always be looked upon as the real pioneer in stock breeding on a large and methodical scale, and without limit as to resources. A university education in Scotland, with all its training in the refinements of logical distinctions, did not bring to Mr. Alexander a knowledge of the pedigrees of Kentucky horses, nor did it train him in the detection of the tricks of Kentucky horse dealers, and thus as a purchaser of his breeding stock he was looked upon by the “sharps” as a fat goose, ready to be plucked. After these “sharps” had secured their pluckings, Mr. Alexander called in a professional pedigreeist to put the lines of the blood he had purchased in order and print a catalogue. This “professional” was not a pedigree tracer, for he never traced anything in his life, but a pedigree maker, and wherever he thought that anything was needed he added it, whether true or not, and it went to the world in that form. This is more conspicuously true in the department of trotting pedigrees, as will appear below. Thus the acts of an incapable and dishonest employee were given the indorsement of an honorable and eminent name; falsehoods were made to appear as truths; counterfeits were put in circulation that are still circulating as genuine coin, with many people. Under the circumstances, Mr. Alexander could hardly be blamed, for, knowing nothing of such matters of his own knowledge, he employed what he supposed was the best authority then to be found. For my own part, when I came to register the Woodburn stock, I was ready to accept as true whatever I found in the catalogue, believing that Mr. Alexander was incapable of publishing to the world a misrepresentation. In this estimate of his character I was right, and I have never changed my opinion on that point, but when I came to examine the structure of his catalogue I found there was rotten wood all through it. A few examples that have been carefully investigated will serve to show the value of the work done by the “pedigree maker” for Mr. Alexander.

Pilot Jr. was a gray horse, foaled 1844, was got by Old Pacing Pilot and attained the distinction of being the head of a well-known family of trotters. He was foaled 1844, bred by Angereau Gray, and owned a number of years by Glasgow & Heinsohn, of Louisville, Kentucky. He was kept a number of years about Lexington, Kentucky, by Dr. Herr, Mr. Bradley, and perhaps others, and always advertised as “by Pilot (the pacer), dam Nancy Pope, grandam Nancy Taylor.” Nobody then ever pretended to know what horse was the sire of either Nancy Pope or Nancy Taylor. He was then owned by the parties who afterward sold him to Mr. Alexander, and it is evident they did not then know anything about the sires of these mares. Mr. Alexander bought him in 1858, and immediately his “pedigree maker” furnished the sires of these two mares; Nancy Pope was given as by Havoc, son of Sir Charles, and Nancy Taylor as by imported Alfred. The controversy about this pedigree was long and sharp, the one side, headed by the modern management at Woodburn, as usual laboring to sustain the infallibility of the Woodburn catalogues, and the other to reach the exact truth, whatever it might be. The Board of Censors of the National Breeders’ Association sent out a call for information on certain abstract points and finally reached a decision as follows: (1) That Havoc, the reputed sire of Nancy Pope, the dam of Pilot Jr., died in 1828. (2) That Nancy Pope was not foaled till 1832. (3) That the breeding of Nancy Taylor, the dam of Nancy Pope, was unknown. These dates were fixed by undoubted evidence, and, as afterward developed, another might have been added with equal authenticity. Imported Alfred, the reputed sire of Nancy Taylor, was not imported till several years after Nancy Taylor was foaled, and thus it was clearly shown by the absolutely insuperable difficulties of dates that both the sires inserted in the pedigree were nothing more than very stupid fictions.

Edwin Forrest seems to have held second place in the list of stallions in the Woodburn Stud at that period, and the remote extensions of his pedigree were also fictitious. His grandam was represented to be by Duroc, the famous son of imported Diomed, and his great-grandam by imported Messenger. The first two crosses were technically inaccurately stated, but the second two, as given here, were purely fictitious.

Norman, the third stallion in the catalogue, had his sire correctly given as the Morse Horse, but his dam was given as by Jersey Highlander and his grandam as by Bishop’s Hambletonian, son of Messenger, both of which were wholly fictitious. His dam was by a horse called Magnum Bonum, a representative of a family of that name, and that is all that is known of his pedigree. A full showing of this pedigree will be found in the “Trotting Register,” Vol. III.

Bay Chief was a bay son of Mambrino Chief, with a bald face, and was often called Bald Chief. He was the sensational trotter of the whole Mambrino Chief family, and I believe it is true that when four years old he showed a half-mile on Mr. Alexander’s track in 1:08 and repeated in 1:08½. In the catalogue he is given as foaled in 1859, got by Mambrino Chief, dam by Keokuk, son of imported Truffle; grandam a thoroughbred mare by Stamboul Arabian. As this was found in Mr. Alexander’s catalogue I took it for granted it must be true, but I never had heard of a running horse called Keokuk before, and I kept hunting for ever so many years without finding hide nor hair of him, until 1885, when the whole mystery was developed. Mr. Richard Johnson, of Scott County, Kentucky, had business interests in Keokuk, Iowa, in the early fifties, probably locating land warrants, and he bought a pair of mares in Keokuk to travel over the prairies, and when he was through with his work he brought the team home with him to Scott County. He knew nothing whatever of the breeding of those mares, but they were a good pair of drivers and one of them was quite a smart roadster that he called “Old Keokuk.” He bred this mare, Keokuk, in 1858 to Mambrino Chief, and in 1859 she produced the colt called Bay Chief. In 1862 he was bred to some sixteen or eighteen mares, and the fall of that year Mr. Alexander bought the colt at public auction, paying one thousand dollars for him. He was taken to Woodburn, put in training and never covered any more mares. In the spring of 1865 he was killed in a raid of Southern troops upon the horse stock at Woodburn. (For further particulars of this little sketch the reader is referred to Wallace’s Monthly for 1885, page 285.) To fix up a pedigree for the maternal side of this colt was no easy matter, but Mr. Alexander’s “pedigree maker” proved himself fully equal to the occasion. There was the nasty name Keokuk fastened to the old mare, and it would stick as tight as wax to the end of her days, coming from a region where there was no drop of running blood; so he made a “thoroughbred” horse, right on the spot, and gave him the name of Keokuk, which would account for the name of the mare, and pronounced him a son of imported Truffle. To supply a “thoroughbred” grandam was comparatively easy, for Mr. Johnson had long been a resident of Scott County, and the horse Stamboul had been kept in that county, hence there could be no doubt that she was a “thoroughbred” daughter of that horse. With this review of the misfortunes of Mr. Alexander in placing the arrangement and, I might say, care of his pedigrees, in dishonest hands, we will pass whatever may remain of his early stallions, and take a glance at some of the pedigrees of his brood mares.