24 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



England are descended from three or four animals 

 foaled in the eighteenth century, and bred chiefly 

 from Arab importations, so the American trotter of 

 to-day can usually be referred to one or more of the 

 following ancestors : Messenger, True Briton, and Di- 

 omed, thoroughbreds ; Bellfounder, a Norfolk trotter ; 

 Grand Bashaw, a Barb ; Pilot, a Canadian pacer ; and 

 Blue Bull, a pacer from the State of Ohio. 



Of these horses Messenger has played the greatest 

 part. He was a gray, foaled at Newmarket in Eng- 

 land in the year 1780, and imported to this country in 

 1788. For a thoroughbred, he was a plain, almost 

 coarse animal, with a big, bony head, low withers, up- 

 right shoulders, and a rather short, straight neck. But 

 his shoulders were deep and strong, his loins and quar- 

 ters very powerful, his legs flat and clean. He had big 

 knees, big hocks ; and his windpipe and nostrils were 

 described by a contemporary writer as being " nearly 

 twice as large as ordinary." He stood 15| hands high, 

 and, " whether at rest or in motion, his legs were always 

 in a perfect position." The low withers, the upright 

 shoulders, the plain head, Messenger inherited from 

 Sampson, his great-grandsire, 1 a black horse ; and these 

 peculiarities, as well as the black color, were so ex- 

 traordinary in a horse of Oriental breeding, that suspi- 

 cions have been entertained as to Sampson's pedigree, 

 and some writers have asserted that his dam was a Lin- 

 colnshire cart mare. But the best authorities do not 

 appear to share these painful doubts, and Sampson may 

 safely be regarded as a true thoroughbred, close to the 



1 Messenger was by Mambrino, by Engineer, by Sampson, by 

 Blaze, by Flying Childers, by the Darley Arabian. Messenger's dam 

 was by Turf, by Matchem, by Cade, by the Godolphin Arabian. 



