MORGAN horse: HIS RELATION TO BREEDING. 339 



head, ears, and legs larger than they should be; over 

 long in the back ; and although they are great striders, 

 yet their heels stay too long under the wagon. A first- 

 class son of the old horse is likely to be a prize : the 

 others should be let severely alone. 



In respect to the Clays I have this to say : That cer- 

 tain parties have seen fit to attempt to underrate their 

 sterling qualities, and to fasten upon them an odious 

 epithet. It has been a sweet saying in certain mouths 

 that the " Clays wouldn't stick." Hiram WoodruiF dis- 

 covered that George M. Patchen would " stick " a little 

 too near him for comfort, even when he had that marvel 

 of speed and bottom, Flora Temple, — and in her highest 

 condition too, — ahead of him. I had the pleasure of 

 seeing Goldsmith's Maid trot her greatest heat at Mystic 

 Track when she made the mile in 2.16| ; and I saw a 

 Clay mare named Lucy — ■ not an entire stranger to the 

 trotting-public, I think — stick so close to the flying 

 beauty, that the least waver or let-up in her gait would, 

 up to the very moment she darted under the wire, have 

 lost her the race. So long as the name of George M. 

 Patchen, — the only horse that could ever keep his nose 

 to Flora Temple's saddle-girths the mile round, — and 

 Lucy, — the only horse living able to keep at the shoul- 

 ders of Goldsmith Maid from wire to wire, — so long as 

 these names remain, the man who says that the " Clays 

 will not stick," but are "quitters," is a fool or a slan- 

 derer ; for Patchen was the greatest horse, save one, of his 

 day, and Lucy is the fastest horse, save one, in our time. 



