IMPORTED BELLFOUNDER. 135 



source that gave them a heavy quarter behind, and originally a longer 

 one — still adhered to the same length of limb of 23 and 39, except in 

 the case of Sayer's Harry Clay, whose dam was a daughter of Bell- 

 founder, and they possess the peculiarity referred to in greater degree 

 than any known family, being 24 and 40 to 41 inches, and in one or 

 two instances where that stock again crossed with Hambletonian the 

 reinforcement of the blood thus derived is shown in a line of 42 

 inches from hip to hock, in a horse fifteen hands and three inches high. 

 It was this feature that gave type and character to Bellfounder as a 

 trotter. He was in reality a natural trotter. In him the nervous or 

 mental instincts of the trotter were displayed by a horse that had also 

 the physical conformation that adapted him to the trotting gait. In 

 his front legs, and in other matters of physical conformation, he did 

 not diifer materially from the Messenger family. That they had many 

 traits in common is clearly proven in a close study of the descendants 

 of each. That Bellfounder was possessed of the blood of Sampson and 

 Useful Cub is strongly indicated in the physical and mental traits of 

 the two families as they united on this side of the Atlantic. That 

 they also brought along their points of dissimilarity, is also ajDparent 

 in the great lack of uniformity in the results of interbreeding the two 

 elements in this country. The blood of Sampson in Messenger had 

 come through a long channel of the purest Arab blood. It had so far 

 assimilated mth it as to completely embody its trotting instinct in 

 the positive and unyielding nature of that blood. Such a blood would 

 be potential and prevailing as a sire, but would not in a female yield 

 to the less impressive qualities of a mixed or cross-bred sire. It might 

 be greatly controlled and modified in certain matters of form and phy- 

 sique, but in the essential spirit and character of the animal, the sire 

 deeply bred in the pure blood of the Arab would not yield to the 

 spirit and mental traits of the lower and mixed-bred sire. Bellfounder 

 as a trotter was greater than all the Messengers, but his blood was 

 not equal to theirs in purity or jDOsitive quality. Bellfounder as a sire 

 was not so impressive in the essential matter of trotting quality as he 

 was in physical conformation and external traits. His blood as a sire 

 could not prevail as against the superior and stronger currents flowing 

 from Messenger, but when that blood was presented in the female and 

 the Messenger of high trotting quality as the sire, the success is 

 marked beyond anything that the history of bi'eeding in this country 

 has ever displayed. From one daughter of Bellfounder Abdallah pro- 

 duced Hambletonian, and from another. Sir Walter, his fastest trotter; 



