62 THE BREEDING PROBLEM. 



of Ham1)letonian for his short existence, was a developed road mare, 

 but not entitled to be classed as anything beyond. So was the 

 granddani of Volunteer, the dam of George Wilkes, the dam of 

 Ericsson and granddam of Clark Chief, the dam of Trustee who 

 trotted the twenty-mile race, and the dam and granddam of Knicker- 

 bocker. 



The dam of Gov. Sprague, in addition to the qualities of a fast road 

 mare fully developed, had the additional element of being a daughter 

 of Hambletonian. The dam of Mambrino Chief by her good quali- 

 ties as a roadster first proved herself to be worthy to produce so 

 great a stallion, and in later years b}^ the qualities of her descend- 

 ants also fully established her claim to the double distinction of 

 possessing as good blood as was on the calendar. From her Abdal- 

 lah would have produced the peer of Hambletonian, and, perhaps, 

 a more generally successful stallion. 



TJie dams of Aberdeen, Cuyler, Middletown, Mambrino Star, Ar- 

 gonaut, and many other distinguished stallions, came from superior 

 road mares — the first on the above list, from a trotter of consid- 

 erable distinction. It is rare indeed that a truly great road mare 

 of good breeding has failed, when bred to a good sire, to produce 

 something worthy of her own excellence, and still more rare, that 

 a really great stallion can be shown whose dam was an unused and 

 idle mare whose blood cjualities had never been called into exercise 

 and proved by actual use and the capacity for hard work. Many 

 mares in the breeding farms of this country have no other claim 

 to superiority than a pedigree showing the blood of distinguished 

 families. That many such fail may be owing to the fact that they 

 never wore a collar or performed a day's work in their lives. It 

 might be that many of these long-pedigree mares would acquire the 

 harmony of nerve organism and blood traits which they seem to 

 lack, if they were put into actual service on the road for a long and 

 uninterrupted period. Nothing else, perhaps, would call out the 

 dormant qualities of nerve and muscle which they carry hidden and 

 unseen. 



It seems to be a law of animal existence, not confined to the 

 human race, that without labor there is no great excellence, and that 

 it is the trials and contests of life that call out and develop the 

 caj^abilities of a race. 



