570 AMERICAN HORSES. 



Seely, the Old Bull's Head cattle drover, who bred him, 

 sold colt and dam for $125 in the fall of 1849 to William 

 M. Rysdyk, then a farm hand in Seely's employ. It was 

 not until 1862 that the great son of Tredwell's Abdallah 

 and the Charles Kent mare gained a reputation sufficient 

 to justify William M. Rysdyk in raising his stud fee above 

 $35. Robert Fillingham, afterwards known as George 

 Wilkes, 2.22, was the trotter that earned it for him. In 

 that year ' Eph ' Simmons matched this son of Hamble- 

 tonian against the famous Ethan Allen for $5,000 a side, 

 and won a great race over the Fashion Course on Long 

 Island, giving his young horse a mark of 2.24I, which 

 was then surpassed only by George M. Patchen's champion 

 stalhon record of 2. 23 J. 



" Dexter, by Hambletonian, began his brilliant career 

 in 1864. Shark, another son of Hambletonian, that once 

 defeated Dexter, came out in the same year. The next 

 season brought to the front Goldsmith Maid, by a son of 

 the Rysdyk horse, and with all four of these great trotters 

 going at once, the great Hambletonian boom began. 

 Beginning with the advent of George Wilkes in 1862, 

 his stud fee jumped to $75, and then to $100, $300 and 

 $500 in successive seasons, and his colts commanded 

 prices until then unheard of for horses of any type in 

 America. 



" Hambletonian died in 1876, having begotten about 

 1)333 foals. Forty of them gained trotting records of 2.30 

 or better. One hundred and fifty of his sons got 1,478 

 trotters of standard speed, and eighty of his daughters 

 produced no trotters in the 2.30 list. In the succeeding 

 generations, the achievements of the family are still more 

 remarkable, and it is estimated that nearly if not quite 

 15,000 of the 17,625 trotters in the 2.30 list are descended 

 from the ' old hero of Chester,' through either sire or 

 dam, or both. Since Dexter's day, every trotter save 

 one that has lowered the world's record has carried the 

 blood of Hambletonian. The exception is Rarus (2.13J), 



