494 THE HORSE OF AMEKICA. 



trotters out of running-bred mares. Of these three Electioneer 

 stands first, Almont second, and Pilot Jr. third. After mak- 

 ing all allowance for the anxiety of certain Californians and cer- 

 tain Kentuckians to prove the need of "more running blood in 

 the trotter," and their manifest willingness to help along with 

 pedigrees in that direction, I am fully convinced that these three 

 horses, in some cases, were able to meet and overcome the hostile 

 elements of the galloper. Not in every case, certainly, nor in a 

 majority of cases. When Senator Stanford was showing me the 

 step of Palo Alto, on his own track, as a three-year-old, I re- 

 marked, "Well, Electioneer certainly triumphed in that case," 

 and the Senator replied, "Yes, but none of my other stallions 

 can do it, and there are some thoroughbred mares upon which 

 Electioneer can't do it." When approached by others on this 

 subject in the riper years of his experience, he was in the habit 

 of replying: "There are thoroughbreds and thoroughbreds; some 

 of them will produce trotters to Electioneer, and some will not." 

 He accepted everything as thoroughbred that had been bought 

 by his agents as thoroughbred, whether in Kentucky or Cali- 

 fornia, and he claimed to be able to pick out those that would 

 produce trotters by their appearance. When pressed to give the 

 characteristics by which he was able to make his selections, he 

 spoke of the shape of the animal, in a general way, and especially 

 by the head and the expression of countenance. In selecting his 

 mares to put in the trotting stud by their "appearance" he 

 would naturally select such as had the "appearance" of trot- 

 ters, and as he personally knew no more about their pedigrees or 

 the inheritance of the animals than the mares knew themselves, 

 he was very liable to be deceived in the breeding of the animals 

 as he selected them. In selecting a mare by "appearance" as 

 indicating that she might throw trotters to Electioneer, there is 

 a strong suggestion that this "appearance" may have been a 

 legitimate "inheritance" sought to be covered up by that sadly 

 abused term "thoroughbred." Whether this suggestion ever 

 entered the Senator's mind I have no means of determining. 

 But whether some of the mares called "thoroughbred" had really 

 a mixed inheritance or not, the fact remains that the three horses 

 named above did succeed in getting some trotters from mares 

 that were strongly running bred. Then the question arises: Why 

 did these three horses succeed where all others failed? We are 

 not able to give an answer to this question that is complete and 



