DUKOO. 14o 



has ever produced ? Both of these were trotters, and from the 

 last one and a 'mare by Henry, the little grandson of Diomed and out 

 of another daughter of Messenger, came the American Star, whose 

 fame as a trotter and the sire of trotters and the dams of trotters, forms 

 one of the brightest pages of our trotting history. It is clear this last 

 horse received nothing but his defects and imperfections from Henry; 

 his greatness as a trotter, and the richness of the trotting elements he 

 cari-ied, came from the Duroc-Messenger blood of which he was com- 

 posed. 



The pure and rich qualities of this blood are 'seen in Volunteer and 

 in all his descendants. Its intensified trotting quality is seen in the 

 American Star family, but tainted and greatly corrupted by the 

 infirmities incident to in-breeding the Duroc and Henry blood; and in 

 the Mambrino Chief family its royal trotting quality, greatly reinforced 

 by the union of the Messenger strains coming through Mambrino 

 Paymaster, found their richest field of development and display, 

 marred, however, by the fact that the low-bred ancestry of the dam of 

 Mambrino Chief also furnished a suitable field in which to manifest 

 and develop the innate and deep-seated taint of the Duroc blood. It 

 is thus that the high and the low are compelled to run in the same- 

 channels, but the wise breeder will be careful which element he will 

 reinforce. 



The great and serious defect of Duroc, and the great obstacle in the 

 way of a free use of his blood in our trotting stock, lay in his innate 

 tendency to curbs, spavins and ringbones — coming from an infirmity 

 of blood inherited from Diomed. The Diomed family have been 

 generally noted for infirm legs. Whyte, the historian of the English 

 turf, says that the racing career of Diomed ended with his going lame. 

 His grandson Henry, the distinguished competitor of American Eclipse, 

 finished his racing history in the same way, and shaky legs have 

 marked his descendants in special degree ever since, even when rein- 

 forced by the pure blood of old Messenger. 



An own brother of the great Eclipse was ringboned, and the testi- 

 mony of Mr. Daniel T. Cock, son of the former owner of Duroc, was, 

 that the colts of that horse " showed a decided tendency to spavins, 

 curbs and ringbones," and for that reason his father sold him. He 

 and his son Eclipse are referred to by Mr. Kissam, a well-informed 

 gentleman of that day, thoroughly identified with the horse interests 

 of the vicinity of New York and Long Island, in the following 

 terms : 



