280 Alexander's abdallah and descendants. 



interposing no real impediments in the way of cross-bred or conflicting^ 

 anatomy. It lacked fixedness and obstinacy, and serv^ed as a sort of 

 amalgam to render opposite and unyielding fields pliant and fruitful, 

 in union with more positive and cuutroUing elements. It was an 

 element that seemed to have affinities for every other, and all tending 

 in a direction to promote ready trotting action, no matter what the 

 combination. It possessed qualities that are difficult to comprehend. 

 While the trotting quality came from an inferior and coarsely bred 

 animal, it had, nevertheless, the faculty of engrafting a trotting action, 

 to a very great degree, on the produce of other bloods far higher in 

 quality. It even succeeded with thoroughbred crosses when the 

 Hambletonian blood failed. Thus, for instance, the grandam of Crit- 

 tenden raised two daughters, one by Alexander's Abdallah, that has 

 never been a success, and another by Pilot Jr., that breeds a colt of" 

 trotting action approaching the highest type — the latter is the dam of 

 Crittenden. This is the only aspect or manifestation of the Pilot 

 blood that is clearly visible in Almont, as we shall see further along. 

 The next link in his pedigree brings us to his own dam by Mambrino 

 Chief. Here we have a cross of royal trotting blood in the foreground, 

 and one that was, like the Pilot blood, also noted for its readiness to 

 amalgamate advantageously with any and all other elements, whether 

 of the trotter or the thoroug^hbred. It was a blood that reached back 

 in straight and short lines to old Messenger, by that process of re- 

 uniting, after a certain interval, two or more currents of the same 

 blood, which, in breeding, is often found to secure an intensified mani- 

 festation of the leading or controlling qualities of the particular blood* 

 This is nowhere better illustrated than in the case of the various 

 families of trotters bred or descended from the Messenger family. 

 Although it is true that now and then an able and intelligent critic of 

 rare acc(Mnplishnients, such as the fluent and versatile editor of the 

 /Sjyortsman, is found ready to detract from the groat merits of the 

 blood of Messenger as a trotting constituent, the concurrent testimony 

 of so many others, and such vast numbers of great performances on 

 the trotting turf, do attest the fact that the great trotting blood of the 

 world is that which has come down to us from the great horse, 

 imported Messenger. Furthermore, we find that the trotting tenden- 

 cies of this blood are best seen when separate currents, after certain 

 intervals, from a common origin, are again reunited. The list of 

 American trotters abounds with illustrations of this proposition. Mam- 

 brino Chief was himself one — greater as a trotter and a sire than any 



