252 STAK-HAMBLETONIANS. 



WILKINS MICAWBER. 



I confess to a kindly liking for Wilkins Micawber. He was a stout- 

 looking, rich dark bay horse, 15 hands 3 inches in height, with white 

 face and legs — which ornamental colors he transmitted, like his brother 

 Startle, to his offspring. He had the same round and sloping rump» 

 low and heavy quarters, and muscular form that I have before de- 

 scribed, and the best hock, with the flattest, cleanest and best set of 

 legs I have yet seen on a stallion of this composition. I have seen 

 some of his produce that give indications of trotting capacity, al- 

 though he had, at the time I saw him, none older, I believe, than three 

 or four years. I have seen some of his weanlings that, like those of 

 Startle, created in my mind a strong belief that he would produce 

 trotters. I have not often seen a young one of more of the vnrj^ 

 game-like appearance, with the most muscular and facile use of limbs 

 in the true trotting direction, than I saw in one or two of the offspring 

 of Wilkins Micawber. His dam was evidently a very superior mare, 

 and had for her maternal ancestor a mare by Nigger Lance, a son of 

 Lance, the highly bred son of American Eclipse. He died in July> 

 1876, leaving some promising descendants. 



DICTATOR. 



Not having seen this brother of the famous Dexter, I am confined 

 to an estimate of him as disclosed by his produce. He is a small 

 horse, only 15 hands high, but he breeds large. His produce are 

 generally dark in color, and have not so much of the white markings 

 as appear in some others of the same family. They have the same 

 motion in the hind leg — swinging from the hip — to which I have re- 

 ferred, and it seems to mark all ages in his produce. They all show 

 much of the Star conformation, but not in so great a degree as those 

 of the first cross, and their thigh proportions indicate clearly that 

 they have the open Star gait. It is claimed that he has produce capa- 

 ble of trotting in 3:30 or better, although there has been no public 

 proof of this capacity. In Kentucky, where he has access to mares 

 of pure trotting qualities of the Clay, Pilot and Mambrino Chief 

 families, he will have opportunities to call out his best qualities as a 

 breeder; and if he has the real elements of blood which are capable 

 of transmitting the high trotting qualities of his family, and blending 

 the same successfully with the current bloods of Kentucky breeding,, 

 he will perpetuate, and, perhaps, add to the lustre of the fame which 



