114 ORIGINAL SOURCES OF TROTTING BLOOD. 



coarse conformation and hig-h quality, all go to show that such was his 

 origin. If we can't get along with the fact of his perforinance, we 

 are compelled to leave that with him. He got along with it. Tlie 

 shoulder and withers of Messenger were not those of a thoroughbred, 

 although the blood of the racer had almost complete sway in the com- 

 position of his family for many generations. 



While the sire of Sampson could not have been a pure thorough- 

 bred, he must have had a very large percentage of that blood. The 

 custom of breeding the racing sire to the black Lincolnshire mare, 

 and then for several generations successively repeating the same resort 

 to the thoroughbred sire, would in three or four crosses produce a 

 coach horse of such qualities in high degree as Sampson himself dis- 

 played. As I have shown in Chapter III, on the employment of rac- 

 ing blood, it can not be employed with entire success except by grad- 

 ual approaches — using at all times the racing blood in the sire instead 

 of the dam. In this way a stallion could have been produced that 

 would have evinced great stamina and united in high degree the qual- 

 ities of the two diverse stocks from which he came. The dam of 

 Sampson united with such a sire doubtless gave us the great progeni- 

 tor of the trotting family of Messengers. It was believed in the day 

 of Sampson, and it can not otherwise he accounted for at this time. 



As I have said, the impressiveness of the sire of Sampson was 

 evinced in the other traits even more strikingly than the weight of bone 

 and the coarseness that prevailed throughout his entire conformation. 

 Long use on the road in harness had done for him what employment 

 under the saddle for generations had done for the ancestry of Blaze 

 and Flying Childers. It had implanted in him a nervous organization, 

 a temperament or inclination toward a particular way of going, that 

 amounted to an instinct or innate habit of mind, which inclined him 

 and his family to that way of going rather than the elastic and far- 

 leaping gait of the race-horse. He had some capacity for galloping, 

 but less inclination. When forced to a rate of speed greater than his 

 trotting capacity, he could and would gallop. Tliis instinct or mental 

 organism was engrafted on Sampson and blended with his race-horse 

 temperament, in the same manner that the perfect union and blending 

 of the blood and character of the two parent stocks were united, and 

 the result was a horse of great superiority and marked character in 

 every respect. 



There has not been a particle of trotting quality displayed in the 

 families of Arabs, Barl)s and English thoroughbreds outside of this 



