HOW THE TROTTING HOKSE IS BRED. 493 



lie deemed him worthy of being at the head of the greatest breed- 

 ing establishment of the world. He was in the hands of the 

 most skillful and careful of all trainers, and the training went 

 on without respite, year after year. When four years old he 

 went through the Eastern circuits, winning the larger share of 

 his purses, and making a record of 2:20J. Now let us consider 

 for a moment whether the Senator did not make a great mistake 

 and select the wrong horse as the typical representative of his 

 great establishment. In 1888 he bred a colt by Electioneer out 

 of Lula Wilkes, grandam the famous trotting mare Lula, 2:15, 

 by Norman, etc., intensely trotting bred, and when he was three 

 years old he made a record of 2:16. This is better than 2:20 as 

 a four-year-old, for this fellow had not to take one-half the train- 

 ing that Palo Alto was subjected to. The next year he bred another 

 colt by Electioneer called Arion, out of a mare by Nutwood; she 

 out of a sister to Voltaire, 2:20^, by Tattler, 2:26; and she out of 

 the famous trotting brood mare Young Portia, by Mambrino 

 Chief; and the next dam Portia by the pacer Eoebuck. 

 This colt came out and trotted a mile in 2:10f as a two-year-old. 

 The four-year-old had a great "boom" and was considered by 

 many as the phenomenal colt of his year, but when we place his 

 record of 2:20J beside the 2:16 of the three-year-old, it looks 

 Tery sickly, and when we compare it with the 2:10f of the two- 

 year-old it is shaded into a deathly pallor. The four-year-old is 

 largely the result of skill and art; the two-year-old is the result 

 of nature. Arion is the best horse, by the record, that the world 

 has ever produced, and the Senator was mistaken in his dream. 

 We must judge of the value of a fast performance by the degree 

 of naturalness which it represents and the measure of its freedom 

 from the arts of the trainer. The "born trotter" is what we 

 want, and at two years old Arion, or any other colt, was at the 

 right age to determine whether a fast performance was the result 

 of nature or of art. 



It is a fact well known to everybody that some trotting-bred 

 stallions have shown greater power in controlling the action of 

 their progeny than others that seemed to be equally well bred. 

 If out of the great mass of stallions, past and present, that have 

 been more or less successful as trotting progenitors, we pick out 

 thirty of the very best, as shown by their progeny, it will proba- 

 bly surprise many of my readers to learn that only three of that 

 number have been able to triumph in the supreme test of getting 



