ABDALLAH. 157 



crowned with honors. He was not popular in Orange county. His 

 uncouth and rough appearance grew more homely and unattractive 

 with age, and his ferocious temper caused him to be still more forbid- 

 ding. It is evident that the kind of care he received greatly added 

 to his lack of beauty, and if he secured any patronage it was from 

 the high estimate they j^laced on his natural trotting power, and the 

 blood of Messenger which he represented in so direct a line, coupled 

 with the well known excellence of his stock. 



After running entirely out of ]5opular esteem in Orange county, he 

 returned in 1849 to the city of New York, where he remained at Old 

 Bull's Head, but did nothing. In 1850 he received sixteen mares, 

 and in 1851 he was in Suifolk county on Long Island, but from thence- 

 forth he seemed to be without friends and patronage. He had already 

 survived his own usefulness and outlived popular esteem. He was 

 taken to a remote place on the island and finally given to a farmer on 

 condition that he should deal kindly with him for the remainder of his 

 days. This farmer, concurring in the general estimate that all others 

 seemed to have reached concerning the old horse, then above thirty 

 years of age, sold the king of trotting stallions to a fisherman for 

 thirty-five dollars ! Such is greatness ! The fisherman, concluding he 

 was about old enough to lay aside regal honors and earn his living 

 like other people and horses, hitched him to his wagon, but the aged 

 monarch, not willing to yield to the degradation, kicked the wagon to 

 pieces, preferring to die of starvation rather than to submit to such 

 menial servitude in the davs of his decline. The frio-htened fisherman, 



«/ 7 



not able to cope wath such an imperial temper, left him to his fate, and 

 as the solitary monarch of the sands he surveyed, he died of absolute 

 starvation. 



The sire of Abdallah was Mambrino, the rough thoroughbred son of 

 imported Messenger — if he was strictly thoroughbred. His dam was 

 the celebrated mare Amazonia, the most noted trotting or road mare 

 of hei" day; bvit of her age or the year of her foaling or purchase, we 

 have no information beyond the fact that she was purchased out of a 

 team in the vicinity of Philadelphia, when four years old, and 

 that about the year 1823 she produced Abdallah. In one place it is 

 stated she was foaled in 1810, but there is no known fact to show that 

 this is within seven years of the date. All of this goes to show plainly 

 enough that neither the value of Abdallah, nor the importance of his 

 dam or her origin, was known or cared for imtil thirty or forty j^ears 

 after the time when the facts could have been ascertained. In fact. 



