THE OKLOFF TROTTER. 391 



trot, they did not seem to know of any particular 'strains, or any 

 one strain better than another, to serve as a foundation, but they 

 were sure they had plenty of trotters. This was the first I ever 

 had heard of French-bred trotters, and it was the last I ever 

 heard of the French trotting register. 



The stalwart Alexis Orloff took a very active part in making 

 Catherine II. Empress of Russia for which he was loaded with 

 honors as well as lucrative offices. In the war with the Turks in 

 1772 he was given command of the Russian fleet, and with the 

 assistance of the English fleet under Admiral Elphinstone, he 

 achieved a great victory and captured the pasha in command of 

 the Turkish fleet. Owing to some unusual kindness Count Orloff 

 was able to extend to the captured Turkish commander, or his 

 family, he presented the count with a pure white stallion, said 

 to be a Barb, which he took home with him and placed in his 

 stud of horses, that he had established but a short time before. 

 Another story is that the count bought this white horse, which 

 he called Smetanka, while he was in Greece and paid a large 

 price for him. I am not able to say which representation is the 

 more probable, and it is not material to our history, as there is 

 no dispute about the identity of Smetanka as the nominal head 

 of the Orion* breed of horses, and neither story gives any infor- 

 mation about his blood. No doubt he was a Turk. Count Alexis 

 commenced his breeding stud in 1770, and there appears to have 

 been a good deal of system about it or else a large amount of 

 very free guessing. When first established, the horse breeders 

 say, it consisted of stallions and mares as follows: Arabs, 12 stal- 

 lions, 10 mares; Turkish, 1 stallion, 2 mares; English, 20 stal- 

 lions, 32 mares; Dutch, 1 stallion, 8 mares; Persian, 3 stallions, 

 2 mares; Danish, 1 stallion, 3 mares; Mecklenburg, 1 stallion, 

 5 mares. From this it will be seen that he had more English run- 

 ning blood than all the other varieties put together, and yet no 

 trotters came from that source. From this great variety of com- 

 posite material the count had free rein in his grand experiment 

 cf producing the type of horse that best pleased his fancy. As a 

 matter of course the indiscriminate commingling of these differ- 

 ent strains and types would produce a mongrel lot, from which a 

 few superior animals might be selected, and doubtless were 

 selected, for breeding purposes. 



The different writers who have discussed the result of this 

 experiment seem to agree, substantially, that two distinct types 



