140 onTGiisrAL sources of trotting blood. 



his chief excellence has been drawn; nevertheless, his spirit and high 

 qualities of nerve and resolution were found in all the family of 

 Diomed. 



His dam was Amanda, by Grey Diomed — a Diomed only in name — 

 son of imported Medley; and from this line came the qualities that 

 give Duroc a place and a name in the trotting families of America. 

 Medley was a grey, was foaled in 1776, and was by Gimcrack, a grey 

 horse, fourteen hands and one-quarter of an inch high — about the 

 standard height of the race-horse in those days — but one of the best 

 horses England has produced. He is described as a compact, stout 

 horse, with powerful quarters, and hock well let down — and this is the 

 point or fact which gives Gimcrack an historical importance in our 

 American trotting horse — a germ here planted which reappears in force 

 and controlling character in the Medleys, the Duroc-Messengers, the 

 Mambrino Chiefs, Royal Georges, Rhode Island and Golddust. 



Amanda, the dam of Duroc, was a chestnut, and one of the best 

 mares of her day. She passed a career of distinction on the tvirf, 

 produced only this one foal, and died the year following from an 

 injury. 



From Gimcrack and Medley came the germ of the qualities that 

 have made the Duroc blood a valuable factor in the trotting families. 

 They were stout and large boned, and possessed a long and powerful 

 thigh and gaskin — a feature in which Duroc excelled, and which 

 marks his descendants in a pre-eminent degree. For be it understood 

 that certain features or peculiarities once engrafted, from whatever 

 source they come, often grow until they assume proportions that con- 

 stitute the characteristic badges of families and races. 



Such are the distinctive features of the descendants of Duroc — a 

 large and powerful frame, wide across the hips, a long and powerful 

 thigh, and gaskin well let down in the hock; this last feature, of 

 necessity, resulting in a rather crooked hind leg, often very crooked. 

 This latter peculiarity seems to have in itself some peculiar adapta- 

 tion to the trotting gait. It causes the animal to go wide apart be- 

 hind, gives him a powerful leverage and one of increased length, and 

 is always attended by the open, loose, even straddling gait — the sure 

 indicator of trotting adaptation. 



American Eclipse was a son of Duroc. A correspondent in Colden's 

 Magazine^ in 1833, describing Eclipse, speaks of his " long and 

 strong thigJi^ hock loell let downy This magazine, in 1834, pub- 

 lished a memoir of Eclipse, in which he is described as having 



