A YEARLING TROTTER. 221 



my high estimate *of tlie composition of this excellent stallion be 

 more clearly understood and more fully appreciated. 



Four years ag-o (1874:) this horse was taken to Kentucky, and at once 

 assumed a front rank in the estimation of Kentucky breeders. They 

 had become familiar with the excellence of the Mambrino Chief family, 

 and had already witnessed the advantages of uniting that blood with 

 the Hambletonian strains, which, though coming from the common 

 parentage of Messeng*er, had acquired some marked points of differ- 

 ence. This horse, in his rare combination of these two famed bloods, 

 and in his own commanding size and form, presenting such a noble 

 specimen of the two families in one, at once acquired great popularity, 

 and has each year received the full limit of seventy-five or eighty 

 mares, to which he has been restricted by his owner. I first saw his 

 weanlings in the month of October, 1874, (bred in New York), one of 

 which sold at public sale for -$500 — not quite ninety days old. In 

 these times, when prices are depressed, and the country is full of 

 stock, it is only the good ones that call for such appreciation. I have 

 since seen one of his fillies, not forty days old, for which $(300 had 

 been oifered. 



As before stated, the first season of Administrator in Kentucky 

 was made in 1871. Other stallions that rank in the first class were 

 then there in the zenith of a brilliant fame, and it is not certain that 

 Administrator for that or the next season received the class of mares 

 that his high qualities deserved. In October, 1877, he had some colts 

 to exhibit, at the great annual meeting of the Kentucky Trotting 

 Horse Breeders' Association, which is one of the great events of the 

 American trotting turf. 



A correspondent of the National Live Stock Journal, who is 

 unknown to me, in giving a report of the event, says: 



I feel warranted in claiming a part of your valuable space for recording the 

 most wonderful five days trotting meeting ever held in the West, as from it 

 your readers will learn, that the fastest mile ever trotted iu America by a 

 yearling, a two-year-old and a four-year-old, and the fastest fourth heat by a 

 three-year-old, were all made by colts and fillies bred, foaled, raised and trained 

 in the blue grass region of Kentucky. I know it is contrary to your custom 

 to give detailed reports of the trotting meetings held throughout the country ; 

 yet, as the above meeting shows such rapid development and remarkable speed 

 in the yoimg trotters, it certainly deserves more than a casual mention. The 

 meeting was held at Lexington, Ky., on the course of the Kentucky A. and M. 

 fair grounds, and commenced October 9, 1877. 



The event of the second day and of the meeting was the performance of 



