192 VOLUNTEKR. 



of a little over one year had shown a record of 2:22^, and an ability to 

 go, as stated above, equal to 2:18, had won about %8,000 in public 

 purses, and sold for $20,000 — and this in close proximity to that same 

 Clav cross of which the writer first above noticed made such doleful 

 lament. 



It remains for us to consider the breeding of "Volunteer, which has 

 placed him thus in the front rank of American trotting stallions, at an 

 age and in a degree of health and vitality which gives promise that 

 as a sire of great trotters he may attain a rank and a fame as far in 

 advance of the past, and as unapproachable in the present or future, 

 as has been scored by his daughter Huntress, in her crowning per- 

 formance of three miles in 7:21^. 



I^et me recur to an observation which was made in a previous ]iart of 

 this sketch, that Volunteer was more like his sire, and more of a Bell- 

 founder than any other well known son of Hambletonian, and that, 

 at the same time, he was nearer the true type of a genuine thorough- 

 bred race-horse. Also, recurring to a proposition heretofore advanced, 

 and which will be conceded by every intelligent observer, I think, 

 that Hambletonian has not crossed well with any thoroughbred mare. 

 Bv what jarocess of blood combination, then, has this result been 

 attained, which is so worthy of observation and so clearly manifest in 

 the character and qualities displayed by Volunteer, and so uniformly 

 transmitted to his family? It was the old-time accusation urged 

 against Volunteer, that his dam was the controlling element in his 

 comi)Osition. Such was the burden of an opposition that cast a moun- 

 tain of prejudice in the course of this horse during ten years of the 

 early part of his life. After a close and thorough study of Volunteer 

 and his. family, and of his dam and her produce by several other stal- 

 lions, I am forced to the conclusion that the charge was well founded, 

 and that the facts of history, as they exist to-day, establish the truth 

 of the accusation. 



Before entering upon a consideration of the history and blood qual- 

 ities of the dam of Volunteer, let me ask, in the light of his own char- 

 acter as herein set forth, what kind of a mare could, from Hamble- 

 tonian as a sire, have produced such a son? From the stand of intelli- 

 gent breeding philosophy, I answer, she could not have been a strictly 

 thoroughbred mare. No such mare could have drawn from Hamble- 

 tonian so many of the traits and qualities of the Bellfounder blood, 

 so marked and fixed in its type, as are seen in Volunteer. Furthermore, 

 she could not have been a mare of an overpowering or greatly pre- 



