CHAPTER TIL 



RACING BLOOD IN THE TROTTER. 



For tlie space of about half a century, it may be said, attention has- 

 been given to the breeding of the trotting horse in America. There 

 were trotters before that time, and some whose names and perform- 

 ances have come down to us to indicate the lines of blood which, at 

 that early period, gave promise of the future greatness of our national 

 trotting horse. Imported Messenger having died in 1808, left as 

 many as ten sons, at least, from whom came descendants showing a 

 ready adaptation to road service, and some of them a strong and speedy 

 trotting gait. 



Bellfounder was imported in 1822, and Abdallah was foaled in 1823, 

 or about that time; and from that period it may be said the attention 

 of breeders, in certain districts where the road horse was becoming 

 popular, was directed to the production and development of horses that 

 would excel in the trotting gait. 



Messenger was a thoroughbred or nearly so;^ and it may be noted 

 that, in all our efforts to improve the quality of horses, recourse in this 

 country is always had to the thoroughbred in the first instance. We 

 are never satisfied to begin with a low animal of any kind, and breed 

 upward by selections from others of the same type. No intelligent 

 and successful breeder of any kind of animals would ever begin 

 in that way. Hence it is that in all parts of the United States where 

 horses have been much used, whether for driving or for saddle pur- 

 poses, the aim has always been to get back to the thoroughbred as 

 the one sure fountain of good blood from which to found and breed 

 the style of horse suited to the wants of the particular district. This 

 being true, then, that the original excellence of our American horses 

 runs back, in most instances, to some thoroughbred, and it also being 

 true that, in the main, our well-bred and highly-developed trotting 

 families go back to the same original, there is a constant demand on the 

 part of many, and particularly of amateur horsemen, for a recurrence 



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