344 THE HOUSE OF AMERICA. 



supported by a sufficient number of authentic instances, to justify 

 the conclusion that his potency in this direction was remarkable. 



During the troublous times of the war many of his early pro- 

 geny were lost or destroyed, but from his own loins he put eight 

 performers in the 2:30 list and others not far away. Six of his 

 sons became the sires of forty-one performers, and eighteen of 

 his daughters produced forty-one performers. Although the 

 official records do not show that Pilot Jr. got any pacers, it is 

 nevertheless true that he did get some very fast ones. But when 

 we get past the period when the pacer was considered a bastard 

 and kept out of sight, we meet with some astonishing facts. As 

 an example, take Miss Eussell, the greatest of all the Pilots. 

 First, she produced a pacer that was changed to the diagonal 

 instead of the lateral step, and then stood for years as the cham- 

 pion trotter of the world. Second, her son Nutwood has placed 

 twenty pacers in the 2:30 list; her son Mambrino Eussell has 

 placed five there, and her son Lord Russell has placed five there. 

 This brief and hasty exhibit of what the descendants of Miss 

 Russell are doing seems to upset ail the laws of heredity, provided 

 always that her dam was a thoroughbred mare. The evidence 

 that the breeding of this reputed " thoroughbred" mare is wholly 

 unknown is considered in another part of this volume. 



In a few odd instances, in the male lines of descent from Pilot 

 Jr., the trotting and pacing instinct seem to be transmitted in 

 stronger measure than in any of the other minor families, but the 

 day of its submersion is not far distant. The survival of the 

 fittest is the law of Nature. 



CHAMPION, the head of the Champion family, was a beautiful 

 golden chestnut, sixteen hands high and without marks. He was- 

 bred by George Raynor,of Huntington, Long Island, and was foaled 

 1842. He was got by Almack, son of Mambrino, by Messenger; 

 dam Spirit, by Engineer Second, son of Engineer, by Messenger, 

 and sire of the famous Lady Suffolk. This is enough Messenger 

 blood to please the most fastidious, but I think there was still 

 more beyond the Engineer mare. When eighteen months old 

 this colt showed phenomenal speed when led behind a sulky, and 

 when three years old he was driven a full mile to harness in 3:05, 

 a rate of speed which, at that time had never been equaled by a 

 colt of that age. This made him "champion" as a three-year- 

 old and William T. Porter named him Champion. After this, 

 performance Mr. John Sniffin, a merchant of Brooklyn, bought 



