314 THE HOUSE OF AMERICA. 



of Canton, Illinois, for one thousand five hundred dollars. He 

 was shown and known as a very fast four-year-old, trotting 

 public exhibitions in about 2:22. With the exception of a three- 

 year-old race at Earlville, Illinois, he did not stajt in a public 

 race until July 20, 1876, when at Chicago he easily defeated a 

 good field, and so promising and attractive did he seem that the 

 late Jerome I. Case, of Racine, paid the great price of twenty- 

 seven thousand five hundred dollars for him. At Poughkeepsie, 

 New York, that season he lowered his record to 2:20, and a few 

 more races ended his short but brilliant turf career. He died at 

 Lexington, Kentucky, May 23, 1883, at the early age of eleven 

 years. His stud career was therefore short, and this fact we 

 must remember in estimating his rank as a sire. Kate Sprague, 

 2:18, and Linda Sprague, 2:19, were about the best of his imme- 

 diate progeny, and Rounds' Sprague, that has twenty trotters 

 and pacers in the 2:30 list, some of them in better than 2:20, seems 

 to be his most successful son. Governor Sprague has to his credit 

 thirty-six trotters and two pacers with standard records, twenty- 

 two of his sons have sired fifty-four trotters and fifteen pacers, 

 and his daughters have produced twenty-three trotters and six 

 pacerj. There was nothing in the inheritance of Rhode Island to 

 justify a supposition that he would transmit speed uniformly, and, 

 like Smuggler, the speed-getting power with him was sporadic. 

 But from his dam, Belle Brandon, Governor Sprague received the 

 blood of Hambletonian through an individual that had speed 

 herself and naturally produced speed; and this strain, combined 

 with the blood of a horse that was good enough in his day to beat 

 Lucy, American Girl and George Wilkes, gave Governor Sprague 

 a right to be all that he was. 



