238 ALHAMBllA. AND MESSENGER DUROC. 



for my use. His produce are regarded by all as showing an early 

 promise of trotting excellence. Earliness of development is a char- 

 acteristic of the Duroc-Messenger class. 



Notwithstanding the precocity and apparent excellence of his pro- 

 duce, it must be taken as an absolute certainty that they can not 

 endure the severe work that all recognize as necessary to bring them 

 to the highest perfection as performers. The high rates of speed 

 shown by them will now and then appear, but the same performers can 

 not be relied upon for constant capability or for continuous advance- 

 ment. They will not include any of the character of Goldsmith Maid 

 and Rarus. When his daughters, properly selected, shall have been 

 coupled with the best of other trotting stallions, noted for strength 

 and inherent health, the best and most valuable results from his blood 

 can be reached — not in his own immediate produce, but in the more 

 a,dvanced stages of breeding, when we shall have had opportunity to 

 practice on selections and crosses thus to be made. I should value a 

 daughter of Messenger Duroc in my breeding plans, and believe that 

 I could select a mating that would vindicate in its results the correct- 

 ness of the opinion above expressed. 



His greatest success hitherto has been with mares by Sayer's Harry 

 Clay — a valuable testimony to the meritorious combination of which 

 they are made, and a clear proof that the Bellfounder blood in his 

 composition is not a nominal nor a dormant factor, but one that is 

 present and ojoerative in full force, and ready, on receiving a proper 

 reinforcement, to display the power and quality of the elements that 

 have come down from the fabled Norfolk trotter. 



This horse Messenger Duroc will excel, as he has already proved, 

 with mares that go back strongly toward the Bellfounder blood. That 

 blood always nicked well with the Duroc strains; the royal trotting 

 quality of the one was hardly surpassed by that of the other. His 

 colts are all young, and thus far he has not shown any great promise 

 except with mares that run back to Bellfovnider, either through Harry 

 Clay, or Hambletonian, or some other source. It must be kept in 

 mind that he has not yet gained any repute for colts by any other class 

 of mares — a very remarkable testimony in favor of the meritorious 

 qualities of the Bellfounder blood; and it must be borne in mind that 

 his opportunities, for the time he has been in the stud, have far sur- 

 passed those of any other stallion that ever stood in America. He has 

 had access to the best Star and in-bred Messenger mares, the dams of 

 many great celebrities, besides others of diiferent lines of blood; he 



