CHAPTER VII. 



VOLUNTEER. 



This distinguished son of Hambletonian was foaled on the 1st day 

 of May, 1854, and is consequently now near the full age of twenty- 

 four years. He was bred by Joseph Hetzel, of Florida, Orange county. 

 New York, and was by him sold to R. C. Underhill, of Brooklyn, in 

 the fall of 1858, who held him for nearly fovir years, and then passed 

 him to the ownership and possession of Alden Goldsmith, of Orange 

 county, who has kept him for a period of nearly sixteen years past. 

 This horse is one well worthy of our careful study in relation to the 

 mere question of breeding, and without any regard to his own merits, 

 or demerits, be they great or small. He is very like Hambletonian, 

 and has more of the essential and distinctive iDoints which make up 

 Hambletonian than any of his sons that I have ever seen. Again, in 

 some resjiects, he is positively and clearly unlike him, and in all these 

 respects, or points of ditference, the distinguishing features follow 

 Volunteer in all his produce with an absolute uniformity scarcely to 

 be found in any family — not even in that of HamVjletonian himself — 

 and extend also to the produce of daughters of Volunteer by other 

 stallions. The Volunteer type follows them, and this fact points with 

 unerring certainty to the powerful and controlling agency of the blood 

 of some animal in the past, which exerts to this date such an impor- 

 tant influence. The force and quality of this blood agency, wherever 

 it may have existed, is found in having in Vokinteer preserved so 

 much of that outward form of Bellfounder in the composition of 

 Hambletonian, too-ether with so manv of the traits or characteristics 

 of the Bellfounder blood, and blending the same, both as to form and 

 character, with so many traits of the thoroughbred or race-horse. 



Nowhere has Hambletonian, in his own sons, approached so near 

 the type of a great race-horse, or strictly thoroughbred, as in Volun- 

 teer, and rarely has he, at the same time, retained more of the essen- 



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