50 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



heightened, and, until a few chance colts by him 

 beo°an to show great speed, he was held in the very 

 lowest estimation. 1 Moreover, his descendants are 

 remarkable not only for speed, but for beauty and 

 finish, and the term "Blue Bull" now suggests 

 qualities the very opposite of those for which it 

 was given. The Blue Bulls, however, are thought to 



lack gameness. 



Of the six horses that I mentioned in the beginning 

 of this chapter as being, in a general way, the founda- 

 tion stock of the American trotter, there remains only 

 one to be described, and that is Diomed, a thorough- 

 bred, and a contemporary of Messenger. Messenger 

 as a sire of running horses was a failure. Of all his 

 foals, only one, a filly called Miller's Damsel, 2 at- 

 tained distinction on the running track ; but Messen- 

 ger, though running bred, had good trotting action, and 

 the gift of imparting it to his numerous descendants. 

 Thus, as we have seen, he played a leading part in the 

 development of the trotter. 



The case of Diomed is very different. He was a 

 successful runner himself, and from him descend the 

 stanchest, speediest runners that have appeared on 

 the American turf. But he was not a trotter nor a 

 sire of trotters, and his foals were few in number, so 

 that upon the general harness horses of the country 

 the influence of his blood was very slight. On what 

 around, then, can he be regarded as one of the half- 

 dozen foundation horses from which the American 

 trotter is chiefly derived? 



i He began his career precisely as did the Godolphin Arabian, 

 and his value was discovered in the same accidental manner. 

 2 And her dam was by a son of Diomed. 



