DUROC. 143 



trotters all trot close: Happy Medium, 22^; Hambletonian Prince, 22; 

 Cuyler, 15 hands 3 inches, 23^; Lakeland Abdallah, 15 hands 2 inches, 

 22-5-; Edward Everett, 15 hands l-J inches, 22^; Geo. Wilkes, 15 hands, 

 22; Lucy, 15 hands 2 inches, 20; G^n. Knox, 15 hands 2 inches, 204^; 

 Tattler, 15 hands 2 inches, 22:^; Orient, 15 hands 2|- inches, 23; Hope- 

 ful, 15 hands 1 inch, 21-2-; Gov. Sprague, 15 hands 2 inches, 23^. The 

 above list indicates the length of thigh in trotters that have no near 

 Duroc blood. 



When the Duroc blood came in, the long thigh widened out the 

 position of the hind legs, and this wide open gait is so attractive to 

 some that it is early seized ujDon as a sure indication of coming great- 

 ness in the trotter. The Star family all show the wide gait, although 

 they possess only one cross of Duroc blood, sandwiched between two 

 and perhaps three crosses of Messenger, and one of Henry, another 

 short-measure horse. It must be borne in mind, however, that while 

 the form and peculiarities which give type to the Star gait came from 

 the Duroc cross mainly, that gait is not the Duroc-Messenger gait. 

 The Henry cross exerted a controlling influence over the conformation 

 of the American Star family, and greatly modified the Duroc gait. 

 But the gait of ]\Iambrino chief and all his family, including the 

 Almonts, is essentially Duroc-Messenger, and is one that is recogniz- 

 able anywhere. It is not the gait of the Mambrino or the Mambrino 

 Paymaster family. Mambrino produced Almack, and he, in turn, the 

 Champion family; and the gaits of all these bear a close resemblance 

 to the elastic, propelling, rear-reaching gait of the Abdallahs, but 

 totally unlike the Duroc-Messenger element. This cross had such 

 long thigh, and such long bone from stifl.e to the whirlbone joint, and 

 at the same time lacked in the flank room or distance from the stifle 

 to the hip, that the motion of the hind limbs involved such a folding 

 up of these members, with so little room for it, that it gave the horse 

 a sprawling motion — spreading out at the stifle — and a wabbling style 

 about the hindquarters wholly unlike the even, elastic tread of the 

 Abdallah and Champion families. Any one who has seen a three- 

 year-old Almont and one of the same age by the present Messenger 

 Duroc turned loose in a lot, can not have failed to recognize the great 

 similarity, I may say identity, of their gaits — they lift the hocks high 

 and are showy fellows. The Black woods train in the same school; 

 and this gait prevails in all the Mambrino Chief family. 



The special adaptation of this Duroc conformation was calculated 

 to make it specially advantageous to cross with the Messenger family, 

 1') 



