CHAPTER YI. 



HAMBLETONIAN. 



By right of acknowledged pre-eminence, Hambletonian claims our 

 consideration as the first on the list of great stallions. He was foaled 

 on the 5th of May, 1849, at Sugar Loaf, Orange county, New York, 

 and is now [March 1st, 1876] nearing the day when he shall have 

 attained the full age of twenty-seven years. With proper care and 

 treatment he may survive several years longer, but his fame, and the 

 renown of his family, will live in the breeding annals of this country 

 for many generations yet to come. Having been employed in service 

 to an extent greater, perhaps, than any stallion ever produced, his 

 back has become much swayed, and this has worked a change in his 

 form, constituting a wide departure from the magnificent original. 

 For some months past he has also suffered from the effects of epizootic 

 catarrh, which has operated much to depress the otherwise vigorous 

 health of this most remarkable animal. But in the face of all the 

 assaults of age, and these infirmities, incident to long service, and the 

 inclemency of the season, he stands to-day a splendid exhibition of 

 equine perfection. His coat is, ordinarily, of the brightest bay, his 

 legs black, the black extending above the knees and hocks, with white 

 socks behind (in size precisely alike), and a small, white star in his 

 forehead. His feet are neither small nor large, and as near the right 

 model as I have seen anywhere. His pasterns not long or short, and 

 from the sole of his foot upward he is as near perfection as I have 

 ever known. His ankles and knees are large, and his cannon-bones 

 flat, clean and hard to the touch, fine in texture and smooth on the 

 surface. His hock is the firmest and the cleanest I ever grasped, and 

 the large tendon, extending above, is very large and firm. I have not 

 seen a horse, of any age, whose limbs and joints showed a finer 

 texture or quality — more total absence of that gummy coarseness of 

 cellular tissue which marks some even of the noted stallions of the 

 day — his joints showing that perfect absorption of their synovial fluids, 



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