HAMBLETOXIAX AXD HIS FAMILY. 279 



he was kept at that most dangerous exercise till he would trot 

 without rails, and until both horse and rider were completely 

 -exhausted. The horse was conquered, and although always 

 willful and hard to manage, ever after, when called on to trot, he 

 would do it. Mr. Pray sold him to Mr. Vanderbilt, and, al- 

 though kept as a private driving horse, he was fast for his day, 

 .and could go in less than three minutes at any time. 



Her next foal was sold also to Mr. Pray when five years old, 

 and was known as the Pray Colt. He was marked just as his 

 brother Crabstick, and, like him, was somewhat vicious and hard 

 to manage. 



The third foal, Young One Eye, was by Edmund Seely's horse 

 Orphan Boy, whose pedigree is not now known. One of her eyes 

 was knocked out by Peter Seely, accidentally, when breaking her, 

 just as her dam had lost an eye. She passed out of the hands of 

 the Seely family and her subsequent history is unknown. If this 

 mare ever produced anything, her history and that of her de- 

 scendants would be of great interest and value. 



The question at once suggests itself, Where did Crabstick get 

 his pacing action? It could not have been from his sire, as he was 

 a son of Duroc, so said, but it may have come from Seagull's 

 dam, as we know nothing of her breeding; or it may have come 

 from old Black Jin, the dam of Silvertail. If from neither of 

 these we must then conclude it came from Messenger himself, or 

 rather, through him from some of his pacing ancestors. It is 

 .altogether probable that the strong infusion of pacing blood in 

 Messenger's veins was the real element that made him a trotting 

 progenitor when every other imported English horse failed in 

 that respect. 



Silvertail, the great-grandam of Hambletonian, was a dark 

 brown mare with white hind feet and a white face. She had a 

 great many white hairs in her tail and hence she was called 

 Silvertail. She was foaled in 1802 and was bred by Mr. Jonas 

 Seely, Sr., of Sugar Loaf, Orange County, New York. She was 

 _got by imported Messenger in 1801, the year he stood at Goshen, 

 New York. Her dam was a great, slashing black mare called 

 ''Jin" that Mr. Seely had used in his business many years, but 

 her origin and breeding cannot now be found. She must have been 

 .a real good one or Mr. Seely would not have taken her to Messen- 

 ger. In the summer of 1806, as was his custom, he was down at 

 New York with a drove of cattle, and his son Jonas, then a lad of 



