Among the other seventy-one producing sons of George Wilkes: that do not come within the scope of this table are many most promising sires of rapidly growing prominence, and indeed this family is branching out wonderfully in every direction. This family is an emphatically improving one. In extreme speed, in racing capacity, and in form the third Wilkes generation is better than either the second or first. Of trotters, such as Beuzetta, 2:06¾, Ralph Wilkes, 2:06¾, Hulda, 2:08½, Allerton, 2:09¼, the once sensational Axtell, 2:12, and many others of the first rank by sons of George Wilkes sustain this judgment. The pacing instinct is rampant in the Wilkes blood, as is attested by the fact that twenty-five per cent. of the performing get of George Wilkes’ sons are pacers, and frequently pacers of extreme speed, including such as Joe Patchen, 2:03, and Rubenstein, 2:05, while John R. Gentry, 2:00½, Online, 2:04, and Frank Agan, 2:03, are by grandsons of Wilkes. Like his sire, George Wilkes got many sons greater than himself—and after all that is the true test of greatness in a progenitor.
ELECTIONEER.
A Great Son of Hambletonian.
Electioneer has for some years led, far and away, all sires of trotters in the numbers of performers to his credit in both the 2:20 list and 2:30 list, and is generally conceded to have had no equal as a producer of early speed—that is, of colts and fillies that trotted fast at tender ages. In many respects this was the most remarkable horse of any age, for besides being phenomenally prolific in transmitting speed at the trot, and in getting early trotters, he possessed in a higher degree than any sire that has yet lived the ability to control running blood in the dam, and to impress his own instinct and action upon his progeny out of any and all kinds of mares. In speaking on his pet hobby of producing trotters from thoroughbred running mares, Governor Stanford once said to me: “None of my stallions but Electioneer can do it;” and of all the hundreds of stallions that have been mated with thoroughbred mares in the hope of getting a trotter of extreme speed, Electioneer alone was able to do it. Palo Alto, 2:08¼, is so far faster than any other trotting horse out of a thoroughbred dam—the one solitary instance on record of a half-bred trotter of extreme speed—that he is significant in one way, and one only, and that is as an evidence of the phenomenal prepotency of the blood of his sire in controlling instinct and action.
Electioneer was a dark bay horse, foaled May 2, 1868, bred by Charles Backman, at his Stonyford Stud, Orange County, New York. He was got by Hambletonian, out of Green Mountain Maid, by Harry Clay, 2:29, grandam the fast trotting mare Shanghai Mary, pedigree not established, but in all probability a daughter of Iron’s Cadmus, the sire of the famous old pacer and brood mare Pocahontas, 2:17½. (In Chapter XXIX., on the investigation of pedigrees, the history of Shanghai Mary is fully given.) Green Mountain Maid, the dam of Electioneer, has been called by Mr. Backman, and with justice, “the great mother of trotters.” In all she bore sixteen foals, fourteen of which were by the not remarkable horse Messenger Duroc. Electioneer was her second foal and the only one by Hambletonian. Of the other fifteen, nine have records of 2:30 and better, another has a record of 2:31, another, Paul, was a very fast road horse, and two died young. Of her four sons kept entire, Electioneer, Mansfield, Antonio, and Lancelot, all are sires of trotters, and her daughters already figure as producers. The figures would seem to point to the daughter of Shanghai Mary and Harry Clay, 2:29, as perhaps the most wonderful of all great trotting brood mares. She was a brown mare, barely fifteen hands high, with a star and white hind ankles, and was finely formed, with an exceptionally beautifully outlined and expressive head. She had very superior trotting action, the trot being her fastest natural gait. A writer who made a very close study of her history said, on this point, in Wallace’s Monthly:
“Her education was limited to a single lesson when three years old; but previously she had been regularly developed on somewhat the same plan since adopted for early training at Palo Alto, and was probably one of the fastest trotters out of harness that ever lived.”
As a matter of fact Green Mountain Maid, while in no sense vicious, was so highly strung, wild and uncontrollable, that her training was abandoned with the “one lesson” referred to, and she never wore harness again.
Green Mountain Maid was a money producer as well as a speed producer. Mr. Backman paid four hundred and fifty dollars for her when she was carrying her first foal, and the writer above quoted states that up to that date (1889) Mr. Backman had received sixty-eight thousand eight hundred and thirty dollars for such of her progeny as he had then sold. This remarkable mare died June 6, 1888, and a fitting monument marks her grave by the banks of the Walkill.
At maturity Electioneer was of that shade of bay that many might call brown, and stood precisely fifteen and one-half hands at the wither and an inch higher measured at the quarter. Many of his get, notably Sunol, are pronouncedly higher behind than at the wither. In general conformation, Electioneer was a stout and muscular horse, standing on fairly short legs. His head was well proportioned, of fair size, and a model of intelligent beauty. The forehead was broad and brainy, the eyes large and softly expressive, and the profile regular, with just the faintest suggestion of concavity beneath the line of the eyes. Electioneer’s neck was a trifle too short for elegance of proportion, but not gross. His shoulder was good, the barrel round, of good depth and proportionate in length and well ribbed, and the coupling simply faultless. The quarters were marvelous, and Mr. Marvin did not overstate the case when he said they were the best he had ever seen on any stallion. They were the very incarnation of driving power, and recalled Herbert Kittredge’s portrait of Hambletonian, except that there was nothing gross or meaty about the buttocks of Electioneer. They were the perfection of muscular endowment and development. The arms and gaskins, like the quarters, were full with muscle laid on muscle, and the legs and feet were naturally excellent. In the last years of his life he went over on his knees a bit, but that was not strange considering his age, and the fact that he had seen considerable track work. Indeed as long as he was at all vigorous he was daily exercised on the track, and in view of his great success in the stud, this fact has a special significance.