MESSENGER AND HIS ANCESTORS. 209 



unknown breeding. Mr. Henry F. Euren, compiler of the Eng- 

 lish Hackney Stud Book, has given Blaze a new place in horse 

 genealogy, and this new place affects the American trotter, re- 

 motely, outside of the line through Messenger. Mr. Lawrence, 

 the best English authority on horse matters in the latter part of 

 the last and the beginning of the present century, had main- 

 tained, confessedly on tradition only, that Old Shales, the great 

 fountain head of the English trotters of a hundred years ago, was 

 a son of Blank, by Godolphin Arabian. On this point Mr. Euren 

 has got farther back and found earlier evidence in printed form 

 that Blaze and not Blank was the sire of Old Shales. We corn- 

 hated this claim for a time, but in the introduction to his Stud 

 Book he has made out a very good case, and we have hardly a 

 doubt but that he is correct. In speaking of the breeding of Shales, 

 and of his dam being a "strong common-bred mare," he says: "It 

 is of interest to examine the pedigree of the sire (Blaze) to deter- 

 mine whether yet stronger racing or pacing elements existed on 

 that side." After giving a tabulation of the pedigree he con- 

 tinues: "There would thus appear to have been a large propor- 

 tion of English (native) blood in the dam of Blaze, though no 

 one can say what was its character whether running, trotting, 

 or ambling." In referring to the fact that Bellfounder was a 

 descendant of Old Shales, the son of Blaze, Mr. Euren makes 

 this practical application of the incident: 



" The fact that in the seventh generation from Blaze, on each side, the re- 

 union of the blood in Rysdyk's Hambletonian, the sire of so many fast Ameri- 

 can trotting horses, should have proved to be of the most impressive character, 

 would appear to warrant the conclusion that there was a strong latent trotting 

 tendency in the near ancestors, on one. if not on both, sides of Blaze." 



These two points from a very high English authority that 

 Blaze was not thoroughbred and that he was the sire of Shales, 

 a great trotting progenitor, must have due weight in reaching 

 sound conclusions. 



SAMPSON, the son of Blaze, was foaled 1745, and he has occu- 

 pied a very prominent and at the same time unique place in run- 

 ning-horse history. He was not only a great race horse, at heavy 

 weights, but he was considered phenomenal in his size and 

 strength, and in his lack of the appearance of a race horse. 

 Some of his measurements have come down to us, and as they are 

 reliable data as to what was considered a remarkably large and 



