90 RACING BLOOD IN THE TROTTER. 



Prince — by Woodpecker, dam by imp. Sarpedon, claimed to be a 

 strictly thoroughbred — has a record of 2:27. He has several lines 

 to Sampson, including two through Mambrino, and the qualities 

 of that blood, as shown in Chapter V, will explain his trotting 

 qualities. 



Planet and Melbourne are both dead, but they died very recently, 

 and their sons and daughters will flourish yet for a long time. The 

 trotting element is in this family, but it has so long been buried 

 beneath the force of numberless crosses of pure racing blood, that 

 its force and quality has well nigh disappeared. It is only when the 

 racing instincts have gro^^^l dull or dormant by disuse, that the trot- 

 ting quality comes to the surface. In this, however, I am anticipating 

 that which properly belongs vnth. Chapter V, and I only turn aside 

 here to say, that while the blood of Trustee and Catton have some 

 traces of trotting quality, it is not enough of itself to give the family 

 the character of a trotting family. It must receive reinforcement 

 from use, employment, or some other source. 



Fiddler was a strictly thoroughbred horse, by Monmouth Eclipse ; 

 his dam was Music, by John Richards, son of Sir Archy. He could 

 both run and trot, and is credited with having trotted under saddle on 

 a highway, twenty miles in one hour, nine minutes, twenty-three sec- 

 onds. His sire ought to have been a producer of trotters from his 

 blood composition. 



Capt. Magowan was by imp. Sovereign, and his dam was by Amer- 

 ican Eclipse. He trotted twenty miles in fifty-eight minutes, twenty- 

 five seconds. 



I know there are those just now who classify all such trotters as 

 the foregoing, descended from the blood of the racer, as having some 

 remote and very mysterious pacing cross, which gives them their 

 trotting quality. 



There was a time when every distinguished trotter whose breeding 

 was unkno^vn was classified in the list of undoubted Messengers, and 

 more recently the same school of authority has transferred all such to 

 the credit of the jDacing element, of which I shall treat in the next 

 chapter. 



In this latter classification there appears one advantage, in the lately 

 discovered fact that the origin of the pacer is a matter of such 

 extreme antiquity that no authority can ever be produced which will 

 in any waj'' refute such classification. It is the safest pedigree that 

 can be given to any great trotter of unknown blood. 



