RACING BLOOD NOT NEEDED. 79 



In reply to this question, as recently propounded, I will say, that 

 "there are trotters and trotting sires, the representatives of trotting 

 families now before the public, that have nothing to gain in fame or 

 breeding excellence by a resort to crosses of any family of thorovighbreds 

 in this country, or any other. They are so highly bred already, as to 

 stand the peers of Tenbroek, Fellowcraft and Longfellow in all the high 

 •qualities that distinguish the equine race, and have, besides, a fixed 

 character, both of nervous find physical conformation, that would only 

 be disturbed and thrown out of harmony by the introduction of any 

 element so foreign to them as the form, brain and habitual gait of 

 the technical thoroughbred. This class, however, is a limited one. 

 The mass of the trotting horses and families of this country have so 

 much in thera that falls below the high standard of perfection indicated 

 :above, that the introduction of crosses having a strong infusion of 

 racing blood can not fail to prove beneficial, and tend, as a whole, to 

 elevate the prevalent standard of blood in our trotting horses. Bear 

 in mind, however, that I speak o£ crosses having already an infusion of 

 xacing blood, as there is already an abundance of such elements in this 

 •country to render it unnecessary to once again recur to a single thor- 

 oughbred animal. We have employed thoroughbred stallions in all 

 parts of this country so extensively as to afford us a very numerous 

 •and universally disseminated stock of part-bred mares; and, in addi- 

 tion to this, the question of sex very greatly affects the utility of this 

 resort to the thoroughbred in elevating the standard of the trotting 

 horse. 



I have carefully read that part of the chapter on breeding the trot- 

 ting horse, which is embraced in the second volume of the Trotting 

 Register. In his conclusions with regard to the comparative results 

 in breeding the trotting horse on the high-bred mare, and the high- 

 Ibred horse on the trotting mare, so far as he intends us to under- 

 stand the thoroughbred mare, I am compelled to differ fi'om the author 

 in the views there expressed. From my own observation and stud}'-, 

 I am inclined to say that I should never breed the trotting sire to 

 thoroughbred mares and expect great results; but from dams that are 

 by thoroughbred sires, and even from mares having two or three 

 immediate thoroughbred crosses (but in no case coming on the female 

 side through a thoroughbred mare), I should breed with great confidence. 



There is, of course, great difference in the power of different stal- 

 lions to stamp a correct trotting gait on their produce from thorough- 

 bred mares. Hambletonian and most of his sons I consider totally 



