300 CLAY IIAMBLETONIANS. 



over a mile in 3:20 or better, without making half the display of 

 great trotting action that many make in going at 2:45, is marvelous 

 to the eyes. The action of the pure Abdallah does not seem to de- 

 pend on great mass of muscle. He is a lithe, sinewy fellow, and 

 his joints have a spring about them that gives him a light, elastic 

 bound at each step; he seems to roll, or rock, gently from side to side 

 on each of his four feet, as if his legs were stiff and springy, but does 

 it with such ease as to remind one of a herd of deer on the prairie 

 when they come down from their long leaps to their lofty rocking- 

 trot, in which they seem to employ no muscle at all and scarcely bend 

 their limbs. The Abdallah horse is not one of long measure or skel- 

 eton (his thigh and length from hip to hock would, in a horse of 15 

 hands 3 inches in height, be about the Hambletonian average of 23 — 

 39 inches), but his agility and fleetness are due, in great measure, to 

 the perfection of the materials of which he is made. 



The Knickerbocker family show much of the gait 1 have last above 

 described, but not in its easiest and finest types. The longer con- 

 formation, derived from the Patchen cross, and the vigorous way of 

 going which is peculiar to that family, has imparted something of that 

 form to the gait of the family under consideration. Instead of the 

 light and lithe dancing gait of Goldsmith Maid they have one of great 

 elasticity, but of more positive and vigorous propelling appearances, 

 and at the same time not quite so demonstrative and slashing as that 

 of the Clays and Patchens generally. On first seeing them move I 

 was forcibly impressed with the belief that the well-bred daughters of 

 Knickerbocker would be the best of all the second Hambletonians for 

 brood mares to breed to the other best sons of the same family. Had 

 I a finely-bred mare by Knickerbocker, possessed of the gait and 

 qualities exhibited by all of his stock that I have ever seen, I would 

 feel that I had one that would mate, with the very best possible 

 promise of great excellence, with Volunteer, Florida, Administrator, 

 Almont or Thorndale, and would, in my judgment, be far preferable to 

 any daughter of Hambletonian himself. If I were to breed a son of 

 Knickerbocker, I should like a mare by Volunteer for the dam ; and 

 if she had an Abdallah pedigree further back, it would be still more in 

 her favor, as I should then hope to approach still nearer to the Ab- 

 dallah gait in its finer form and higher perfection. Such breeding 

 would also tend toward ])roducing a stallion of far more impressive 

 power, and one more distinctive in his type and character than if made 

 up of more diverse elements. 



