64 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



Sampson. Great length from hip to hock implies a 

 short cannon bone in the hind leg, and a short cannon 

 bone in front is also the badge of a trotter. Smug- 

 gler and Stamboul are the only notable exceptions 

 to this rule that I recall. Wide hips are apt to be 

 found in a trotting horse : this is especially true of 

 the Clay family. Rysdyck's Hambletonian had a 

 round rump, but a sloping rump is more common in 

 the trotter ; an excessively sloping rump, however, is 

 the peculiar mark of a pacer. Very oblique shoulders, 

 running far back, such as belong to the saddle horse 

 and hunter, seldom occur in a fast trotter ; and I be- 

 lieve that this remark would be almost equally true 

 of running horses. Many trotters, as we have seen, 

 are disfigured by tails set on low ; and this again 

 is a common feature in running horses. In fact, 

 shoulders inclined to be straight, and drooping tails, 

 are thought by some writers to have a close connec- 

 tion with excessive speed at any gait. A long body 

 combined with a rather short back furnishes another 

 indication of trotting capacity; and this was the 

 shape of Flora Temple, the first horse to attain 

 national reputation as a trotter. 



Flora Temple reduced the record for a mile from 

 2.25|- to 2.19|. She was well born, her sire being 

 Kentucky Hunter, but in her early youth she was 

 considered almost worthless on account of her wild, 

 and, as everybody supposed, ungovernable temper. 

 Flora, as they called her at first, was a rough-coated 

 little bay mare, not over fourteen hands two inches 

 high, but possessed of a blood-like head, shapely neck, 

 straight back, and fine legs with powerful muscles. 

 Her birthplace was in the neighborhood of Utica, 



