96 THE HOUSE OF AMEEICA. 



and did not live long. The whole number imported into all the 

 colonies before the war of the Revolution counts up to about fifty, 

 and some of these are practically unknown, and a few of them 

 were wholly fictitious. Maryland, I think, was first in the field 

 of importations, and then followed Virginia, New York, and 

 North Carolina. Possibly the very earliest importations were- 

 made in South Carolina, but there is not much evidence that 

 those importations were utilized to any extent for racing pur- 

 poses, and hence we know but little of the doings of that colony * 

 till a later date. There were not more than about twenty mares- 

 of English race-horse blood imported, in the quarter of a century 

 preceding the Revolution, into all the colonies. As many of 

 these animals of both sexes were stolen or destroyed during the 

 war, we can approximate with some degree of certainty the great 

 reduction in this producing force by the time the war ended and 

 importations again commenced. 



Now, we have before us the old colonial running stock that 

 had been tested in many a battle and found able to cover the 

 distance of two to four miles, and we have also the new running 

 stock thkt had never been asked to go any further, but we have 

 no actual, authentic and reliable knowledge of the comparative 

 speed of the two classes. There were no stop watches nor 

 records of time kept in those days. This much only we 'know, 

 that prizes were offered for "half-breds" for a few years, but 

 when it was found that some of the half-breds could run just as 

 fast and as far as some of the whole-breds, this class of prizes was 

 withdrawn. Then commenced the manufacture of fraudulent 

 pedigrees, for, it was argued, "How could an American horse^ 

 beat an English horse unless be had English blood and plenty of 

 it?" Hence, when a horse won that fact was taken as proof that 

 he was full bred, and no time was lost in investing him with a. 

 first-class, pure -bred pedigree. This was a little onerous on the 

 few imported mares that were known and named, as in the case; 

 of imported Mary Gray, for she had to produce eleven filly foals 

 by imported Jolly Roger in order to accommodate her numerous 

 progeny, as alleged, and how many more claims were made of 

 the same pedigree it would be very difficult to estimate. When it 

 began to appear a little awkward to require Mary Gray to have, 

 on paper, more than eleven filly foals by Jolly Roger, it was soon 

 discovered that it was less perplexing and at the same time less. 

 liable to be "cornered" by saying "dam an imported English 



