52 THE HORSE. 



was won by the former in twenty-seven minutes and ten seconds. — A Mr. Stevens 

 made a bet which was decided 5th October, 17^6, that he would produce a pair of 

 horses, his own property, that should trot in tandem from Windsor to Hampton 

 Court, a distance of sixteen miles, within the hour ; notwithstanding the cross coun- 

 try road, and great number of turnings, they performed it with ease in fifty-seven 

 minutes and thirteen seconds. Phenomena trotted nineteen miles in an hour.— These 

 examples are adduced to show the fallacy of that impression which would lead the 

 public to look to any but the true and rational sources of superiority — for mankind 

 has ever been prone to the marvellous, preferring to look for all that does not lie on 

 the surface, to some mysterious influence, unconnected with known and rational 

 causes. The trotter, according to the distance prescribed as the measure of his 

 capacity, needs the combination of form and blood — of bone and of nmscle, which 

 give distinction to the hunter ; and the reason, if it be asked, why the ihorough-bred 

 cannot be relied upon for a hard run over a rough country, is, that he rarely combines 

 these requisites, and is moreover put to his work when iuo young ,• but does any one 

 doubt that Sir Archy, or Timoleon, or Eclipse, or imported Tranby, or Leviathan 

 would have made first-rate hunters or trotters, if, before they were put to hard work, 

 their frames had been left to ripen, and their bones and joints and muscles to get firm 

 and solid, and at the same time pliant and supple by gentle and moderately increasing 

 exercise until five or six years old — for here it is to be noted, that as to the age at 

 which the trotter should be put in training, and that at which he reaches his maximum 

 of power, though there would seem to be some diflerence of opinion, all agree that 

 the trotter is not in his prime until he is eight or nine years old. The Abdallahs, 

 great-grandsons of old Messenger, trot much younger; Hiram \YoodrulT, and there 

 can be no better authority, would commence a horse's training for the trot at five or 

 six years of age, giving him light work however, but going on increasing his work 

 from year to year, and expecting increasing excellence up to nine or ten years, and 

 with kind usage he might continue up to this mark for three or four years longer, and 

 they often last to perform admirably until after twenty — for example, Columbus, Paul 

 Pry, Topgallant, &c. 



The stoutest horses, of whatever kind or degree of blood, might be expected to 

 give way if put at three or four, as the race-horse is, into severe training under heavy 

 weights, for trotting stakes or the chase ; but on the other hand, without blood to give 

 him wind and courage, what would avail his " bag of bones," in a trial to trot his 

 hundred miles in ten hours'? Johnson, author of the Sportsman's Cyclopedia, justly 

 esteemed high authority on such subjects, remarks that " thorough-bred horses, and 

 particularly those of the best blood, are seldom possessed of sufficient bone to render 

 them pre-eminently calculated ff-r the chase; yet 1 am free to confess that the very 

 best hunters that have fallen under my observation have been remarkably well ajid 

 very highly bred, but yet not absolutely thorough-bred." The same remark it is not 

 doubted might be made as generally applicable to our first-rate trotters, at long dis- 

 tances. The case cf Abdallah and Messenger have been instanced to show, that 

 great trotters not thorough-bred, may and do beget trotters, and hence some would 

 argue that a distinct race of horses may or does exist. But it is to be remembered 

 that both Abdallah and Messenger are sons of Mambrino, son of old Messenger, and 

 of Messenger mares, though not thorough-bred ; and nothing is better known by all 

 who have been in the habit of attending to these subjects, than that the IMessenger 

 family is distinguished for making first-rate coach-horses — quick in light harness, and 

 remarkable for endurance and long life. That Abdallah, therefore, himself deep in 

 the Messenger blood, should be himself a trotter and a getter of trotters, only proves 

 that like begets like, and that of a distinct breed, like the thorough-bred horse, cha- 

 racterized by the possession of general properties belonging only to and constituting 

 that breed, there may he particular families, distinguished for some peculiar qualities 

 not possessed in the same degree by other families of the same breed. 'I'hus we 

 have the three classes of the English thorough-bred stock, to wit : the JJerod, the 

 Matchem, and the Eclipse, that have served as cross(^s for each otlicr. In like manner, 

 it may be said of the improved short-horn cattle — their general characteristic is early 

 maturity and propensity to fat, without being generally remarkable as deep milkers, 

 though there are families of the short-horns esteemed for thai quality; — a dash 



