218 ADMINISTRATOR. 



and soundness to a combination with an element whose tendencies 

 were so strongly toward unsoundness. 



The Bellfounder blood was also one of rare health and vigor, and 

 free from all hereditary taint, such as that which came down in the 

 blood of Diomed. But these two magical bloods have not always 

 been successful in eifacino- the infirm tendencies of the Duroc blood. 

 Bad hocks, spavms, curbs and ringbones sometimes come out and 

 mar the excellences of the most promising embodiment of these 

 three great trotting constituents. 



But in this matter of sound and powerful hocks, in the stallion 

 Administrator and in all of his produce, it must be conceded that the 

 Messenger, Abdallah and Bellfounder bloods have completely tri- 

 umphed over any and all infirm tendencies of the Duroc blood. 



His hocks can not be surpassed in strength, form or soundness; 

 and in all I have seen of his produce of full age, two-year-olds, year- 

 lino-s and young foals, I have not seen or heard of an unsound, 

 defective or ill-formed hock in the whole number. He is now in Ken- 

 tucky, where breeders have had such opportunities for studying bad 

 hocks that they do not overlook them in the produce of a horse that 

 can command the full limit of eighty mares before the expiration of 

 his season, if any such defects exist. His feet, while large, are not 

 the broad, flat feet of the original Messenger Duroc pattern, nor are 

 they in any degree of the soft and fragile texture which marked the 

 get of that horse, and many of the Mambrino Chief family. In all 

 these particulars the inherent soundness of the Messenger and Bell- 

 founder blood has asserted its full sway, and his broad, flat legs and 

 general soundness are apparent to the most casual observer. His 

 body is evenly formed throughout, and of the most muscular pat- 

 tern. His perfection of health and soundness in every part is shown 

 in this, that at the age of thirteen years he began his season in the 

 stud weighing 1,210 lbs., and on the first day of July, after securing 

 eighty-one mares, which, with the returns for service — not a large 

 proportion — amounted to a service of nearly one hundred times, he 

 weighed just 1,200 lbs., in my presence; and, furthermore, could at 

 any period of this time show a 2:30 gait. No horse that did not pos- 

 sess constitutional power of the very highest order could approach 

 this capacity. He spent the first ten years of his life in a way not tO' 

 encourage the belief that he could ever show or attain to speed. But 

 in two years after passing into the hands of Col. Stevens he trotted a. 

 full mile inside of 2:35, and this at the close of a heavy year's ser- 



