A FAMILY OF MUSCLE. 283 



.founder element, or pertains also to the Messenger' family, is not clear 

 to my inind, but that it is a characteristic of the Hambletonian family 

 appears to my entire satisfaction; and I have thought that this pecu- 

 liar attainment of this family had some sort of connection with that 

 singular and difficult-to-comprehend location of muscle and power in 

 this family, which appears most clearly when the Bellfounder blood is 

 doubled, as in the produce of Hambletonian sires on mares by Sayer's 

 Harry Clay — as noticed in my last chapter. 



This family, as I there showed, were of the long measurement from 

 hip to hock, and were seeming or apparent dwellers — and Harry Clay 

 was himself a noted quitter — while the produce of those mares are so 

 far reinforced by the additional and direct Bellfounder element, 

 through the Hambletonians, that fast time is not more their character- 

 istic than endurance in the race. Gazelle, Bodine, St. Julien and 

 Prospero are all of this class, and have been found fast, and, so far as 

 tried thus far, not wanting in stamina for the number of heats neces- 

 sary to win a race. I know of no family that seems to have more of 

 the strength of quarter in the inside and back part, which I have here 

 referred to, than appears in Almont and in his produce with great uni- 

 formity. The three great families from which he is immediately de- 

 scended are so completely blended, and unite in such perfect harmony, 

 that it is difficult to indicate readily the different phases and manifesta- 

 tions of each. His appearance is strikingly Hambletonian, and with 

 all that, he is a plain, good-looking horse — neither coarse in any part, 

 nor strikingly fine in any particular. He does not seem like a large 

 horse, and, at a little distance, has the appearance of a rather small 

 one, but when you get close to him you discover that he is exceed- 

 ingly stout and compact. His limbs, while flat and blood-like, are 

 large and powerful; his knee is 13f inches around; his hock 17-|- 

 inches; and he is 15:^ inches around the large tendon, at the smallest 

 place above the hock. He stands so low that he does not seem large, 

 but his weight of 1,175 pounds tells how compactly and powerfully he 

 is built. While speaking of his hocks and limbs I can not omit notice 

 of the pre-eminent quality of both. I think we rarely pay sufficient 

 attention to this matter of texture and quality of leg. I have recently 

 found fault with one stallion — sparingly, as I thought — and it seems 

 others, also — as I received a letter from a gentleman, well known all 

 over the Union as a breeder, who reminded me that I omitted to notice 

 his " gummy " legs. Almont's are not of that kind, and the most 

 Bevere work brings up no traces of inflammation or swelling. They 



