THE CONESTOGA HORSE. 



175 



New ]\[arkGt Craven, the biennial stakes at Ascot, and other races ; beating 

 Fitz Roland, the winner of the 2,000 guineas stakes, and Sunbeam, tlic win- 

 ner of the Doncaster St. Leger, and running a dead heat in the New Market 

 stakes with Beadsman, the winner of the Derby. By his performances and 

 his pedigree. Eclipse was considered the best colt of his age in England. His 

 sire, Orlando, was one of the fastest horses of the century ; and his grand- 

 sire, ^J'ouclistone, has to this day produced the greatest number of winners. 

 Eclipse weighs 1,150, and his colts already in training show the speed, size, 

 and bone of their sire. 



Like Slasher, Eclipse has no colts yet upon the race course, but they are as 

 highly prized by their owners as any in the country, and give abundant 

 promise for the future, having exhibited as two-year-olds on their first training 

 a remarkable degree of speed and mettle. 



Eclipse stands sixteen hands in height ; is of a rich chestnut color, and in 

 form and appearance is the highest type of the thorough-bred English racer. 

 His best performance in England was running a dead heat for the " two 

 thousand guineas stakes" with Beadsman, the winner of the Derby the week 

 following. • 



Mr. A. J. Miner, who brought so many of Mr. Ten Broeck's horses, English 

 and American, successfully to the post, considered Eclipse as probably the 

 fastest horse he ever saw. For many of the facts and suggestions in this article 

 we are indebted to "Wilkes's Spirit of the Times." 



THE COKESTOGA HORSE. 



BY HOxN. JOHN STROHM, \E\V PUOVIDENCE, PENNSYLVANIA. 



The wide celebrity acquired by this distinguished animal has induced a 

 belief that he springs from some peculiar species or breed of that genus of 

 quadrupeds whose services contribute so largely to the comfort and prosperity 

 of man, especially in an agricultural community, and has inspired a desire to 

 know something about the origin, comparative merits, and system of breeding, 

 of a class of horses whose fame is commensurate with a large portion of the 

 United States. 



Fully impressed with the belief that the superior excellence attributed to the 

 Conestoga horse is not derived from any strain or breed that can now be traced 

 to its origin, the following sketch has been penned with the view of exploding 

 that idea, and at the same time to rescue the history of that celebi'ated animal 

 from that oblivion to which modern inventions and recent innovations are 

 rapidly consigning it. 



The name of " Conestoga" is derived from a river (to which the aboriginal 

 inhabitants had given that name) that rises in the northeast part of the county 

 of Lancaster, one of the southeastern counties of the State of Pennsylvania, 

 and flows through the central part of said county, in a southwesterly direction, 

 disemboguing into the Susquehanna at a place now called " Safe Harbor," 

 where extensive iron works have been established. This river rises in and 

 flows through a region of country of unsurpassed fertility, where cereal grains 

 and nutritious grasses are grown to an extent unrivalled in any part of the 

 United States. 



