TEMPERAMENT. 187 



must at all times treat him with great kindness and perfect gentle- 

 ness. They have a spirit and a temper that will not allow any- 

 other treatment. It is pretty well understood that they have a hot 

 spot somewhere, and it is a peculiarity of temperament that comes 

 from some source a long way back, and adheres to the family even in 

 the more remote descendants. They must not and can not safely be 

 urged or asked for speed until they are perfectly mature and ready — say 

 at about the age of six years — when, if they have been properly 

 jogged and gentled until that time, and taught to foot or trot in the 

 right fashion they will show their speed, and plenty of it. That they 

 will last in the race, and from year to year, there can be no reason to 

 doubt. They are a whalebone family, and bottom to the last. 



In former years, when it was common, if not popular, in Orange 

 county to express disapproval or fault with Volunteer, it was often 

 said that he was too high in temper, had a " disagreeable and head- 

 strong disposition," and " the wildness and great deficiency in mental 

 balance most of them show make it very uncertain what to breed ta 

 him," and " too wild and foolish to be counted on as producing any 

 but a very small proportion of trotters.'''' 



This same writer says that " the Volunteers are generally good- 

 sized, handsome horses, showing more of the Bellfounder than the 

 Messenger," and this last expression I quote because of its correct- 

 ness, that I may not be said to deal only in such statements of this 

 very intelligent gentleman as have been already overturned as 

 unsound. Volunteer and his family are noted for a temper and 

 nervous organization of the very highest order, and higher, perhaps, 

 than any other son of Hambletonian that has attained any distinction, 

 but, at the same time, this trait is coujjled with intelligence and 

 docility of the highest order. They require a firm hand, but a kind 

 and intelligent one; and instead of lacking in brain power, they have 

 that quality to a degree that has told in many a hotly-contested race, 

 that mental or nervous force of wall that goes to the end conqueror or 

 dies in the attempt, but in their case generally coupled with the 

 physical stamina and speed to get there aHve, and ready for many- 

 more. 



A few facts in the history of this horse will set his qualities in their 

 proper light. He went out of the hands of his breeder at four and a 

 half years of age, after he had won the premium given for stallions in 

 Orange county, which he did with grace and ease, passing into the 

 hands of Mr. Underbill before he had arrived at years of maturity. 



