Hambletonian (Judson’s) was a brown horse and resembled his sire very much in both size and form. He was foaled 1821, got by Bishop’s Hambletonian, son of Messenger; dam by Wells’ Magnum Bonum. This Magnum Bonum family abounded in that region, and it was a very good one, whatever the blood may have been. This horse was bred by Judge Underhill, of Dorset, Vermont, and sold, 1829, to Dr. Nathan Judson, of Pawlet, Vermont. He was kept in that region till he died about 1841. His progeny were very numerous and valuable.
Hambletonian (Andrus’) was a brown horse nearly sixteen hands high. He was a well formed and evenly balanced horse, all over, with an objectionable lack of bone just below the fore-knee. His head and ear were strongly after the Messenger model. I have never been able to determine just who bred him, and consequently his blood on the side of the dam is not fully established. He was foaled about 1840, got by Judson’s Hambletonian, and out of a mare which Mr. B. B. Sherman says was by old Magnum Bonum. He seems to have known this mare well and speaks of her as a very superior animal. This would indicate inbreeding to the Magnum Bonums, and as they were a light-limbed family we may account for this horse’s defects in that respect. He was owned a number of years by Mr. Andrus, of Pawlet, and passed into the hands of G. A. Austin, of Orwell, Vermont. In 1853-4 Mr. Austin sent him to Illinois, along with Drury’s Ethan Allen, Black Hawk Prophet, Morgan Tiger and some other stallions, in charge of Mr. Wetherbee, for sale. In 1854 they were removed to Muscatine, Iowa, and several of them sold there, among them the Andrus Horse. He was then stiff in his limbs, showing the effects of previous neglect and abuse. He died at Muscatine in 1857. His progeny there were defective in bone. I am told several of his daughters in Vermont have left good stock there and thus perpetuated his name in the second and third generations. But his chief title to fame has been secured to him by his renowned daughter Princess, the dam of the great Happy Medium. In 1851 Mr. L. B. Adams, who then owned her, bred the Isaiah Wilcox mare, by Burdick’s Engineer, son of Engineer by Messenger, to Andrus’ Hambletonian, and, in a nutshell, the union of this great-grandson of Messenger with this great-granddaughter of Messenger produced Princess. This pedigree of Princess is incontrovertibly established and will be given in fuller detail in the history of her son, Happy Medium.
HAMBLETONIAN (RYSDYK’S).
The greatest of all trotting progenitors and the most intensely inbred to Messenger.
CHAPTER XXI.
HAMBLETONIAN AND HIS FAMILY.
The greatest progenitor in Horse History—Mr. Kellogg’s description, and comments thereon—An analysis of Hambletonian, structurally considered—His carriage and action—As a three-year-old trotter—Details of his stud service—Statistics of the Hambletonian family—History and ancestry of his dam, the Charles Kent Mare—Her grandson, Green’s Bashaw and his dam.
Hambletonian, 10.—It has been a matter of constant regret that in the compilation of the first volume of the Register I attached the name “Rysdyk’s” to this horse, and this misstep has served as a kind of apparent justification for very many men to seize upon the name “Hambletonian,” with their own name as a prefix. This has led to great confusion and annoyance to all that body of men who have anything to do with records and correct pedigrees. Fortunately, however, the evil has become so apparent that many writers are beginning to use the numbers, and we now very frequently hear men speak of “Hambletonian, 10,” as the true designation of this horse.