EARLY HORSE HISTORY CANADA. 151 



ines, for four hundred dollars, and he gave him the name of 

 Royal George, and kept him many years. In 1858 W. H. Ash- 

 ford, of Lewiston, Xew York, bought him and kept him two or 

 three years there and at Buffalo. He seems to have passed into 

 Doherty's hands again, and died at St. Catherine's, December, 

 1862. It is not known that he ever had any training as a trotter 

 except what he got from his owner on the road, and there is no 

 tradition of his ever having been in a race but once, and that was 

 on the ice at Hamilton, about 1852, against the famous State of 

 Maine, for a considerable wager. In this contest he was the 

 winner. His highest rate of speed was about 2:50 under the 

 saddle. He was strongly disposed to pace, but when he got 

 down to his work his gait was a square, mechanical trot. He 

 left a numerous progeny with a heavy sprinkling of pacers among 

 them; they were generally of fine size and very useful animals. 

 Many of his sons were kept entire and that whole region of On- 

 tario was filled up with Royal Georges, to say nothing of the 

 large numbers that were brought across the border. He left one 

 representative in the 2:30 list, and five sous that became sires of 

 performers. 



Toronto Chief was the best son of Royal George, according to 

 the records. He was a brown horse, foaled 1850, and was bred by 

 George Larue, of Middlesex County, Ontario. His dam was a 

 small bay mare by a horse called Blackwood, and his grandam 

 was by Prospect. The horse Blackwood "was bought of a 

 Frenchman below Montreal in 1837," and that is all that can be 

 said of his blood. He was a horse of fine size and went with 

 great courage. Toronto Chief passed through several hands be- 

 fore he reached his owner, A. Bathgate, of Xew York. He was a 

 horse of great speed for his day, having a record of 2:31 in harness 

 and 2:24^ under saddle. He left three representatives in the 2:30 

 list, and among them the famous Thomas Jefferson, 2:23, with 

 thirty-nine heats to his credit. Six of his sons became sires of 

 trotters, and five of his daughters producers. Like all the other 

 minor families, the Royal George family is surely being absorbed 

 or submerged in trotting strains of more positive and uniform 

 prepotency. 



It is probably true that Old Columbus and Old St. Lawrence 

 were both descended from the Tippoo family, as they were both 

 T^red in Canada and seemed to possess and transmit the same 

 characteristics as the Royal Georges possessed, in conformation 



