458 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



had to wear toe-weights through all her brilliant career to keep 

 her on her gait as a trotter. Everybody was astounded at this 

 phenomenal performance and went wild over it as something 

 that had never been done before, by a four-year-old, and proba- 

 bly never would be done again. On this performance I simply 

 remarked, in the Monthly: 



"Her trotting inheritance is very strong and well defined on both sides of 

 the house, and she has a right to trot, and trot fast, and her 2:17 shows that 

 she trots instinctively, and without much training; and in this she is phenome- 

 nal. She is simply a little in advance of her time; for no truth is more fully 

 sustained by analogy and reason than that, in a few generation of judicious 

 selections, such mares will not be phenomenal." 



From this four-year-old record of 2:17| in 1878, we pass on to 

 the two-year-old record of 2:10f in 1891. A four-year-old now 

 trotting in 2:17| is only commonplace. It was not a gift of 

 "prophecy" nor an overwrought enthusiasm, therefore, that 

 enabled me to determine that 2:17-^ for a four-year-old would 

 become commonplace, but a study of the laws of breeding in the 

 light of all past trotting experiences. When this performance 

 was made the late B. G. Bruce, of Lexington, Kentucky, then 

 editor of a sporting paper, went into ecstasies over it and was at 

 once able to show, to his own mind, that it was all owing to the 

 running blood in Maud S. that enabled her to show phenomenal 

 speed. He figured this all out and showed that she possessed 

 eleven-sixteenths of what he called "pure blood," to five-six- 

 teenths of what he called "cold blood." In winding up his 

 article, he says: 



"In conclusion we deem it evident from her form and action that the great 

 power of Maud S. comes from her pure blood; that her breeding back on the 

 form and action, courage and endurance of the blood horse is the very reason 

 why she is so superior to all four-year-olds that have ever appeared. And an- 

 other point is obvious: the pure blood matures so much earlier than the cold 

 blood that years are gained in development over the cold-blooded trotter." 



Now instead of Maud S. possessing eleven-sixteenths of "pure 

 blood," as claimed by Mr. Bruce, it has never been shown and 

 never can be shown that she possessed one single drop of "pure 

 blood." When Sally Russell, the grandam of Maud S., was sold 

 to Mr. E. A. Alexander, she was sold under a fraudulent pedi- 

 gree, and when Pilot Jr. was sold to Mr. Alexander an utterly 

 impossible pedigree was manufactured for him. In both cases 

 he was the victim of sharpers, for in his life and character he 



