i:^rPORTED BELLFOUNDER. 187 



The loud clamor of many of those who speak disparagingly of 

 Bellfounder is, that he had no success outside of the Messenger blood. 

 It may be said, in reply, that the Messenger blood found its chief and 

 most brilliant success in its union with that of Bellfounder. The real 

 fact is, that the Bellfounder blood constituted the one needful outcross 

 for the Messenger. 



This latter blood, as I have shown, was displaying tendencies that 

 had to be counteracted. The lono- in-breedino- in the Arab blood was 



CD kD 



fast operating on the Messenger blood to the impairing of the trotting 

 leverage in the physical conformation, if not on the trotting instincts 

 in the nerve organism. It was necessary to counteract this, and the 

 Bellfounder cross met the demand squarely. The blood was so far 

 familiar that it did not operate v/holly as a foreign or violent outcross, 

 and the new physical elements furnished an element of invigoration 

 which called out all the energies and vitality of the blood of 

 Messenger. The result is known and seen every day in the renown of 

 our Hambletonian family, wiiich as a trotting family stands in advance 

 of all others. 



In the former part of this chapter, in considering the qualities of 

 Messenger, we have seen that while he possessed trotting quality in an 

 eminent degree, that was not his controlling or paramount quality, 

 and that the result of close in-breedino- in his blood caused a retroarrade 

 of trotting inclination. 



A study of Bellfounder establishes the view that his blood had two 

 aspects: first, that he was not a horse that had long been bred in the 

 same line of blood, that he was made up of recent unions of diverse 

 elements, and hence was not in the matter of his trotting quality an 

 impressive sire; but secondly, that his prevailing and dominant quality 

 was that of a trotter. Hence it is clear in point of philosophy, and 

 experience tends to confirm the view, that in-breeding in his blood, so 

 far as it can be done with reference to vigor and inherent soundness, 

 will and does tend to increase and intensify the trotting quality. 

 Such, I have no doubt, is the fact; and while one breeder said to me, 

 that in his breeding efforts he should aim to get away from this blood 

 as far as possible, I will advise, as I did in the first published series of 

 these chapters, that the breeder get as close to it and as often as can 

 be done with proper reference to health and vigor of the animals to 

 be bred. 



There are two aspects in which in-breeding in the Bellfounder blood 

 will improve the American trotter of Messenger descent, namely, in 



