THE TROTTINQ-IIORSE OF AMERICA. 123 



so, at the request of his fatlier, who had come on from 

 Philadelphia with liira, I got off at the end of eight and 

 three-quarter miles. At the end of the twelfth mile, money 

 was laid that the mare would do sixteen miles within the hour, 

 and she accomplished it with great ease. The sixteenth 

 mile was made in 3m. 10s., and she had three minutes and 

 nineteen seconds to spare out of the hour. She could have 

 gone eighteen miles in the hour just as well as not. The 

 race took place about four weeks after the one in which I 

 rode Shaking Quaker from the plough ; and, if I had not rid- 

 den that, I do not think I should have been selected to ride 

 Lady Kate. I shall now describe a big time-race ; which is 

 all the more interesting because it was done by a grandson 

 of the imp. horse Messenger, who was gray like himself, 

 and had most of the prominent characteristics of that cel- 

 ebrated breed. I think it of the more importance because 

 of the theory now started by some, that a cross to the 

 thoroughbred stallion is not the way to breed trotters. It 

 has not been the way up to this time, except in the case of 

 those got by this thoroughbred horse Messenger in this 

 country, and by his sire. Lord Grosvenor's gray horse Mam- 

 brino, in England. I do not mean to commit myself, just 

 here, to any theory of breeding ; but will point out the in- 

 disputable facts, that here was a thoroughbred stallion that 

 got trotters of true action and bottom to stay all day, and 

 that his sire had got plenty of them before him, they both 

 being trained and successful running-hotSQ^. 



Now let us pass to the race and its preliminary history. 

 It was in 1833, when my father kept the Harlem-park 

 Course, at its first opening, that a Scotch gentleman named 

 McLeod owned a gray gelding called Paul Pry. This 

 horse was about twelve years old, sixteen hands high, coarse, 

 and raw-boned, but with a blood-like head and neck, and all 

 the points good, though very plain. He was a flea-bitteE. 

 gray, and was thought to have been got by imp. Messen- 

 ger himsell Bit this was not possible, as Messenger died 



