TROTTING FAMILIES. 45 



mate, and he was, 1 believe, the first horse to be driven 

 in that somewhat ridiculous fashion. The manner is, 

 to provide strong breeching covered with sheepskin, 



and to make the traces of the runner shorter than 

 those of his mate. The runner thus pulls the trotter 

 along, very much as a boy is pulled by a wagon when 

 he " ruts behind." and hangs on to the tail-board. 



Ethan Allen's record in single harness is 2.2o\. 

 This discrepancy of lO* seconds between his record 

 with and his record without a running mate is greater 

 than it should be, and is probably due chiefly to the 

 fact that his hind legs were faulty, his hocks being- 

 somewhat weak, and his pastern joints too long and 

 delicate, so that he could not maintain his speed except 

 for a short distance. These defects he inherited from 

 his dam. One who knew the horse well wrote of him : 

 " He works with the least possible waste of motion. 

 His stride is as precise as the stroke of a pendulum, 

 and so true does he carry his body, so graceful his 

 head and neck, and so animated his carriage, that he 

 seems to "light up' all over, and presents a most per- 

 fect, sylph-like form of elegance." 



The best son of Ethan Allen was Daniel Lambert, 

 who became the most distinguished progenitor of trot- 

 ters that has appeared in the Morgan family. His 

 dam was Fanny Cook, a chestnut, and a daughter of 

 Abdallah, son of Messenger and sire of Rysdyck's 

 Hambletonian. Thus in Daniel Lambert the Messen- 

 ger and Morgan strains were united, and this combina- 

 tion has since produced many fast trotters. 1 In Daniel 

 Lambert disappeared the faulty conformation that 

 Ethan Allen inherited from his dam, and he was not 



1 Notably Jack, 2.12J, and Pamlico, 2.16|. 



