HORSE OF CONQUEST AND CEREMONY 



but in peaceful days was an admirer and a breeder 

 of the trotting horse. For some years previous to 

 his death General Sheridan was President of the 

 Washington Park Jockey Club, which owned the 

 fashionable running track at Chicago, but an airing 

 behind a fast trotter pleased him almost as much 

 as it did General Grant or General Miles. Direct, 

 who could be balanced to trot as well as pace, and 

 who acquired a fast record at each gait, carries the 

 foundation trotting blood of Hambletonian, Mam- 

 brino Chief, and Seely's American Star, and his union 

 with a mare descended from the old saddle stock of 

 Tennessee, gave us Direct Hal, who won champion- 

 ship honors in harness as a pacer. There is a closer 

 affinity between the high saddle type and the ad- 

 vanced harness type than some people seem to be 

 aware of. Thus far Direct Hal has sired fast trot- 

 ters and fast pacers, demonstrating the inter- 

 changeability of gait. As I have repeatedly said, 

 environment has much to do with the character of 

 the horse. He adapts himself to the things required 

 of him. When the running stallion Messenger was 

 landed in Philadelphia from England in 1780, horse 

 racing was under ban in Pennsylvania, and other 

 uses than producing runners had to be found for 

 the gray son of Mambrino. The laws of 1820 not 

 only suppressed racing in Pennsylvania, but imposed 

 penalties for printing any advertisement of a race 

 meeting. Messenger died in 1808, and the stern 

 repression of racing in so many States forced his 



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