ORIGIN OF THE LONG LEVERAGE. 363 



they derived their descent from Ogden's Messenger; and that through 

 the dam of Ogden's Messenger, a daughter of Highflyer, whose dam 

 was a daughter of Gimcrack, this family derived the anatomical 

 conformation of a peculiai'ly long and strong thigh, the same that 

 Duroc derived from Amanda, the granddaughter of Medley, the son 

 of Gimcrack; and that this Gimcrack thigh is the index finger — the con- 

 trolling meml^er, that shapes and forms the character, the gait or 

 way of going of our American trotters to a greater extent than any 

 other one fact or circumstance in all the pages of equine history, to 

 be seen, known and read of all men who will carefully and intelli- 

 gently study the action of our respective trotting families; and 

 further, that the taint or seeds of infirmitv in the Durocs came from 

 Diomed, and that this fact accounts for the point of divergence 

 between the two families. 



In this family, and in that of the Duroc-Messengers, a fact is pre- 

 sented which is worthy of special consideration. The Messenger 

 horse and the Diomed family are both noted for what I term a short 

 leverage — a thigh not over 23 to 23 inches in length, and a length 

 from hip to hock of 38 to 39 inches — and in their way of going they 

 show the effect of such a conformation in a close and even gait, not 

 spreading wide behind. In the Duroc family, although he is a 

 Diomed, there is a departure from this narrow gauge. The thigh of 

 the Duroc-Messenger is from 24 to 25 inches in length, and he trots 

 wide apart, often very wide, and the gait is one of marked j)eculiarity. 



In the family of the Royal Georges, tracing, as they seem to do, to 

 Ogden's Messenger, we find another family that go wide apart, a gait 

 very analogous to, but not precisely like that of the Duroc-Messenger. 

 It indicates the long thigh, and accompanying it a longer line fi-om 

 the hip to the hock than is found to jDrevail generally among the 

 Duroc-Messengers, although the latter are not as uniform in this respect 

 as they are in regard to the length of thigh. Some of them have the 

 other measure long also, but generally they are not long from hip to 

 hock. These facts suggest a unity of origin at some point, inasmuch 

 as this peculiarity is not found in other families descended from the 

 thoroughbred. When it is also found that the two families had a 

 common ancestor in Gimcrack, equally distant from either, and that 

 he is described in the same terms that are used to portray the 

 physical peculiarities of Duroc, the conclusion is strongly supported 

 that the peculiarity to which each of these families owes its gait 

 and way of going — the long leverage — had its origin with the horse 



