340 THE HOUSE OP AMERICA. 



ever heard of either of these pedigrees. And again, this quasi- 

 breeder wrote me that after Edmund Seely had brought the horse 

 to Goshen he went to see him, and after fully identifying him as 

 the same horse he had bred he gave the pedigree to Mr. Seely as 

 he had given it to me. If this be true it is a very strange thing 

 that Mr. Seely never seemed to know anything about it, but per- 

 sisted in giving the pedigree as by a Canadian horse and out of a 

 mare by Henry. Upon the whole, I long ago concluded that my 

 first and earliest correspondent on the question of American 

 Star's origin was unfortunate in having a mental organization 

 that placed him "long" on the ideal, and "short" on the real. 



His stud services may be summarized as follows: In 1844 he 

 was kept at Warwick and New Milford, Orange County, New 

 York. In 1845, 1846 and 1847 he was in Ulster County, and on 

 the borders of Orange. In 1848 and 1849 he was at Hillsdale, 

 Columbia County, New York. In 1850, 1851, 1852 and 1853 he 

 was at Goshen and other points in Orange County. In 1854 he 

 was at Elmira, New York. In 1855, it is said on good authority, 

 he was kept ten miles below Hudson. Others say he was at Pier- 

 mont, Rockland County, that year. In 1856 he was at Mendota, 

 Illinois. In 1857, 1859 and 1860 he was again in Goshen. In 

 February, 1861, he died at Goshen, the property of Theodore 

 Dusenbury. In Orange County his service fee ranged from ten 

 to twenty dollars, and at last twenty-five dollars, and he was liber- 

 ally patronized. An unusually large percentage of his foals were 

 fillies, and he was essentially a brood-mare sire from the start. 

 Opinions differ very widely among horsemen as to his capacity 

 for speed, some maintaining that he could trot in 2:35 while 

 others insisted on placing him ten seconds slower. In trying to 

 harmonize these conflicting views it is probably safe to conclude 

 that, when fit, which seldom occurred in his whole life, his speed 

 was about 2:40. He was always a cripple from defective feet 

 and limbs, and his whole progeny were more or less subject to the 

 same troubles. 



He left four trotters that barely managed to get inside the 2:30 

 list and eight sons that put sixteen inside of the list. But his 

 strong point was in the producing character of his daughters. 

 Thirty-six of these daughters left forty-five of their produce in- 

 side of 2:30. The disparity in the producing power of the sexes 

 in this family is very remarkable and, in a breeding sense, very 

 instructive. In the light of what has been developed in this 



