HOW THE TROTTING HORSE IS BRED. 459 



stood away above all suspicion. The pedigrees of Pilot Jr. and 

 Sally Russell have been fully considered in Chapter XXIX. of this 

 volume. 



After publishing "The American Stud Book" in 1867, and the 

 first volume of the "Trotting Register" in 1871, and having care- 

 fully compiled all past trotting races and trotting experiences, 

 up to the close of 1872, it began to dawn upon me that possi- 

 bly I had been handling a great many fictions and thereby given 

 them an indorsement to the world as truths. This "gave me 

 pause," as well as many a sleepless night and anxious day. The 

 old adage, "What everybody says must be true," gave me no com- 

 fort, for I had just found that Mr. "Everybody" was a great liar. 

 Then a higher and purer maxim suggested itself to my mind, 

 "One, with the truth on his side, is a majority," and under this 

 banner I enlisted for the war which I knew was coming. Having 

 compiled the pedigrees of all running horses and all trotting 

 horses, so far as known, up to 1870, and more especially having 

 gathered up all past trotting experiences and statistics, I felt 

 that I was equipped to enter the lists with everybody against me. 

 I knew I was liable to meet antagonists on every side, and some 

 of them of great ability, but at the same time I knew they had 

 neither the armor of truth nor the weapons of facts at their com- 

 mand. Mere prejudices and the limping opinions that spring 

 from them have no force in an earnest combat. The platform 

 upon which I stood was aggressive, but simple and easily compre- 

 hended, viz., "The English horse Messenger, in his own right 

 and by his own power, founded a family of trotters something 

 which no other English horse had ever been able to take the first 

 step toward accomplishing." This was the central point around 

 which the battle raged, and to it I added the pacer as a subsidiary 

 or minor source of speed, equally certain in fact, but not equally 

 well defined in lines of descent, nor equally important in num- 

 bers and value. From these major and minor sources it is liter- 

 ally true that all our trotters have descended. In confirmation 

 of this, a very capable and careful writer in the New York Sun, 

 within the past few months, has said: "Hambletonian is the pro- 

 genitor of ninety per cent, of the fast trotters now on the turf." 

 When we start with Hambletonian, the triple great-grandson of 

 Messenger, we are safely within the period of records of both 

 blood and performances, and we are relieved from some possible 

 uncertainties in the earlier period of Messenger himself, hence 



