GAME TROTTERS. "543 



was not a difficult matter to approacli and handle him while in the 

 care of his accustomed keepers, when I saw him quite recently. 



His front legs are not quite satisfactory, being over at the knees — a 

 trait that comes as much from the fact that he has a long front cannon 

 and a short forearm as from any other. This also causes him and his 

 produce that have a similar proportion of limb to strike the ground 

 with force, and is inducive of injury to the feet and limbs. It is a 

 feature that detracts something from the very high trotting capacity 

 and quality of his family. 



His measurement of limb for trotting qualities is what we would 

 call a short-leverage conformation. His front cannon-bones are not as 

 short, and his hip and thigh not as long as the best. His skeleton 

 form is not that of a great trotting family. There is not a particle of 

 Duroc blood in him. Trotting action does not come so natural to his 

 family as to some others; hence they do not show it so plainly in colt- 

 hood, and do not excel as field trotters — they are not naturally the 

 early, showy fellows. 



Whence then comes his great excellence as a sire, and the great 

 performance of some of his produce ? The inclination to trot, of 

 course, comes from the Harnbletonian blood; and as Hambletonian 

 did not impart this quality to all of his produce in equal degree, so 

 this son does not impart the trotting capacity alike to all; but those 

 who do inherit it have also the faculty of training on, and go with 

 flights of speed that are the wonder of all beholders. Where does 

 this all repose? No one has ever attempted to explain it. Why is it 

 that, lacking in the leverage conformation requisite for great perform- 

 ance, he is yet able to impart such superior powers to so many of his 

 produce? 



Any one who has closely studied the peculiar qualities of the 

 Messenger and the Bellfounder blood has found that with all the 

 excellences of each, they require a sort of toning before they let out 

 their richest exhibitions of trotting power. The Messenger must 

 have some little alloy of road elements, to get rid of the Arab tenden- 

 cies and cause it to assimilate and let out its real trotting excellences. 

 Just in like manner the Bellfounder element refused entirely to amal- 

 gamate with the strictly thoroughbred strains, and required some of its 

 kindred blood that had like ingredients of alloy. The road-worked 

 Messenger going back to the pristine Sampson with his coach-horse 

 blood and instincts, was the amalgam that caused the Bellfounder in 

 Hambletonian to fuse and work in harmony and power in other com- 



