DEXTER. 249 



speed; but I have not yet seen one that did not, at slow speed, swing 

 the hind leg from the hip, as though there was difficulty in bending 

 it. I 3ay, without hesitation, that I know of no animals which dis- 

 play such perfection of muscular action as is shown by the members 

 ■of this family. It would seem that in them the intelligence and skill 

 of human production had reached perfection, if the quality can only 

 be maintained amd transmitted to or engrafted upon other families 

 •exempt from the defects which mar this otherwise highly-formed family. 



It can not have escaped the observation of any of my readers thus 

 far, that there is a great similarity — an almost identity — between the 

 Star-Hambletonians and the Everett family. Their gaits, however, 

 ■are not alike. The Everetts are not Star-gaited, and they could not 

 be without a Duroc thigh, or its equivalent; but in all other respects 

 there seems to be a complete identity between the two families, ex- 

 cept it be in one other particular — to which I may as well here refer, 

 but of which I shall speak further — in this, that not over one son 

 of Hambletonian and a Star mare has yet prodviced a trotter capa- 

 ble of trotting in 2 :20 or better. There are nearly thirty entire sous 

 of Hambletonian whose dams were Star mares; yet only three of 

 these have produced trotters in the 3:30 list, and a small number of 

 such stand to the credit of the family. Everett stands ahead of all 

 the list combined. 



It may not be out of place here to suggest that the appearance of 

 Judge Fullerton — a large, dark chestnut gelding, with white face and 

 legs, looking more like Dexter than any horse on the turf — and that 

 of many others of the prodvice of Everett, goes far to suggest the 

 same departure from the uniformity of color which prevails in the 

 Hambletonian family that is visible in those of the Star cross; also, 

 that Everett and those of this Star cross, though of the smallest of the 

 Hambletonian family themselves, commonly breed out large horses, 

 in most cases equal in size to the produce of 16-hand sires. 



Whatever may be the peculiarity of the blood forces that mark the 

 •differences between the Bellfounder-Messenger families and those of 

 the Everett and Star families, the difference between the two latter is 

 simply one of degree — a mere matter of intensity or accumulated 

 force of blood in the last over the other. 



DEXTER. 



Dexter has been so often described, that the public are familiar with 

 his apjDearance. A dark bay or brown gelding, with a white stripe the 



