THE BLUE BULL AND OTHER MINOR FAMILIES. 353 



ring about 1843. His son, Pruden's Blue Bull, was of a dun 

 color and a natural pacer, but his dam has never been traced. 

 He was large, strong, rather coarse, and had some reputation as a 

 fast pacer, for a horse of his size, and his color was quite preva- 

 lent among his progeny. He was bred in Butler County, Ohio, 

 and about 1853 was taken to Boone County, Kentucky. In 1861 

 he became the property of G. B. Loder, of the same county, and 

 in 1863 he traded him to James Pruden, of Elizabethtown, Ohio. 



The pedigree of Wilson's Blue Bull, the head of the family on 

 the side of the dam, is equally unsatisfactory so far as the blood 

 elements are concerned. We know that this dam was called 

 Queen, that she was bred by Elijah Stone, and that she was got 

 by a horse called Young Selim, but we know nothing about 

 Young Selim. We also know that the dam of Queen was called 

 Bet, and that Mr. Stone bought her of Mr. Sedan, and there all 

 knowledge ends. Since the days of the great racing progenitor, 

 Godolphin Arabian, of whose origin and blood nobody, living or 

 dead, had a single shadow of knowledge, down to the day of Wil- 

 son's Blue Bull, no horse equally obscure in his inheritance has 

 ever been able to prove himself really "great as a progenitor of 

 speed. 



In the days of Blue Bull's rising fame, and indeed till his death, 

 there was developed such a condition of muddled morals as one 

 seldom meets with in a lifetime. Whenever a horse of unknown 

 breeding, in any one of three or four States, began to show some 

 speeu, his owner at once called him a Blue Bull, and if he went 

 fast enough to enter the 2:30 list, he was at once credited to Blue 

 Bull by his friends, and they were all ready to fight for it. If 

 the books of Blue Bull's services did not show that the dam of 

 the "unknown" had ever been within a hundred miles of that 

 horse, it was all the worse for the books. With a large number 

 of men interested financially in Blue Bull stock, ready to claim 

 everything in sight and anxiously looking for something more to 

 appear, it became a most laborious task to keep this class of 

 frauds out of the records. Another cause of dissent and dissat- 

 isfaction among the "boomers" of Blue Bull blood was the final 

 discovery of the breeder in Elijah Stone and that there was no 

 "thoroughbred" blood in his veins. At that time a very large 

 majority of the horsemen of the country honestly believed that 

 all speed, whether at the pace or the trot, must come from the 

 gallop. It was not the truth, therefore, that these people were 



