316 THE HORSE OF AMEHICA. 



Jones, 1857, for five thousand and twenty dollars, and died 1861. 

 Soon after his arrival in Kentucky he was matched to trot against 

 Pilot Jr., and the match stirred up a great deal of interest 

 among the breeders. He was so big and coarse and so far re- 

 moved from the type of the running horse that very few believed 

 he could show any speed at any gait, for the distance of a mile 

 and repeat. He was placed in the hands of Dr. Herr, who had 

 had some experience in handling trotters, for preparation. When 

 the day came there was quite an assemblage to witness the race 

 but the Pilot Jr. party came forward and paid forfeit. This was 

 a sore disappointment to those who thought the big horse could 

 not trot, and to satisfy them that he could trot and trot fast, Dr. 

 Herr drove him to show his gait, and notwithstanding his quarter 

 cracks he satisfied all that he really was a trotter. This was an 

 auspicious opening of a successful career extending through the 

 remaining six years of his life. 



In the sense of success, Mambrino Chief was really the pioneer 

 trotting stallion of Kentucky. True, " Old " Abdallah had been 

 there fourteen years earlier, but he was in bad shape and breeders 

 did not like him. He was very plain in his appearance and only 

 left some half-dozen of foals behind him when he was brought back 

 to Long Island. The breeders all turned to his stable companion, 

 Commodore, that was more after the pattern of the running horse, 

 and would not look at Abdallah. This Commodore filled the 

 blue-grass fields with his foals, but none of them could trot. He 

 was a son of Mambrino, by imported Messenger, and was an in- 

 bred Messenger, if his pedigree was right, but he was a failure as 

 a trotting sire. Mr. Marcus Downing took his horse, Bay Mes- 

 senger, there about the same time and he was a failure also, not- 

 withstanding he was a grandson of imported Messenger. Both 

 Commodore and Bay Messenger should have been trotting sires, 

 but either one of two reasons was sufficient to prevent that con- 

 summation. First their blood and physical structure were all 

 right, but the mental structure the instinct to trot was lack- 

 ing; they inherited from some ancestor that could not and was 

 not inclined to trot. Second, Kentuckians of that period knew 

 nothing about trotters and they may have lacked in the requisite 

 knowledge, skill and patience to develop them. It is true that 

 old Pacing Pilot and some other pacing tribes were there that 

 would occasionally throw a pacer with the diagonal motion, like 

 Pilot Jr., but there was no other blood there that trotted before the 



