146 The Trotting and the Pacing Horse 



time the vital question. The outlay would em- 

 barrass him if the mare or colt should die. He 

 finally said Yes, and mother and son were taken 

 to Chester. The bay colt, with star and hind 

 ankles white, grew into a powerful horse of 15.2 

 and was named Hambletonian. His head was 

 large and expressive, his neck rather short, his 

 shoulders and quarters massive, and his legs 

 broad and flat. His triple line to thoroughbred 

 Messenger, over the substance-imparting cross of 

 Bellfounder, gave us the greatest progenitor of 

 harness speed that the world has yet seen. Expe- 

 rience shows that for stock purposes you want a 

 horse with masculine head and neck. After the 

 Civil War I was a frequent visitor to Blue Grass 

 Park, the refined home of A. Keene Richards, 

 near Georgetown, Kentucky, where Arabs direct 

 from the desert and native horses grazed in the 

 pastures, and more than once my attention was 

 called to the strong points of War Dance, then 

 treated with studious neglect by some of the 

 breeders of the country. " He has not the deli- 

 cate head of the Arab or a tapering neck, but I 

 like him all the better for this. His strong head 

 and lionlike neck and shoulders are suggestive of 

 constitution, and if you live long enough you 



