CHAPTER XXIX. 



INVESTIGATION OF DISPUTED PEDIGREES. 



Tendency to misrepresentation The Bald Galloway and Darley Arabian 

 Godolphin Arabian Early experiences with trotting pedigrees Mr. 

 Backinan's honest methods Shanghai Mary Capt. Rynders and Widow 

 Machree Woodburn Farm and its pedigree methods Victimized by 

 "horse sharps" and pedigree makers Alleged pedigree of Pilot Jr. 

 conclusively overthrown Pedigrees of Edwin Forrest. Norman, Bay 

 Chief and Black Rose Maud S.'s pedigree exhaustively considered Cap- 

 tain John W. Russell never owned tbe inare Maria Russell The deadly 

 parallel columns settle it. 



A FEW years more than forty have slipped away since I first 

 began to give serious attention to the subject of horse history 

 and to contribute an occasional article to the press on that sub- 

 ject. Among my very earliest observations, or I might say, ex- 

 periences, was the realization of the fact that exaggeration as a 

 Mbit of thought and utterance was practically universal among 

 Norsemen. Sometimes I have thought this tendency to the un- 

 true resulted from the ammoniacal exhalations of the stable, but 

 this thought is not a satisfactory solution, for some of the great- 

 est liars about horses have never known anything about stables. 

 Then, 'again, I have thought that a really skillful metaphysician 

 might write a learned disquisition of the question and satisfy 

 himself as to the cause of this moral delinquency, but nobody 

 would be able to understand him when he had completed it. 

 This wretched vice, so prevalent everywhere, was not restricted 

 to the professional country "hoss jockey," ready to "swap" with 

 every man he met on the road, but it reached up to men of 

 otherwise excellent character, and these men would "stretch the 

 blanket'' tremendously about the blood and other qualities of 

 the horses they were selling. The only way we can account for 

 an otherwise honest and truthful man exaggerating the merits 

 and blood of his horses must be (1) in the fact that he has be- 

 come attached to him and thinks him better than he is, or it may 

 l>e (2) that he bought with a false pedigree and without examin- 



