HAKRY CLAY MARES. 381- 



I know of no such celebrity as could establish the fame of an entire 

 family, much less recall one for a long time consigned to the shades 

 of obscurity and obloquy. 



But to come, not only within the range of truth, but to the very 

 truth itself, it is a fact undeniable, and now teaching lessons that 

 have long been overlooked, that the greatest success since the union 

 of the blood of Abdallah and that of Bellfounder in Hambletonian, 

 has been the crossing of Hambletonian and his sons, on mares by the 

 son of Neaves' Clay, known as the Sayer's Harry Clay. One of the 

 earliest of this class was the mare Gazelle by Hambletonian, and she 

 attained a record of 2:21, and was reported to be even several seconds 

 faster; then at a later period the same horse gave us James Howell 

 Jr., 2:24. Soon after the son of Volunteer, Bodine, began to show his 

 great and powerful stride, and has since attained a record of 3:19|-. 

 His dam was a very coarse mare, having herself come from a mare of 

 moderate pretensions for blood or capacity. 



Soon afterward, Prospero, a son of Messenger Duroc, came out 

 trotting with great promise, the credit all being claimed, however, for 

 his sire, who was to be the great stallion of the present, especially 

 with Abdallah and Star mares, from which he has not yet produced a 

 trptter. Prospero vpas a black, and carried the white strip of the 

 days in 2:20, and if he does get out of fix now and then, it is not 

 due to any quit in the Clay blood. 



Not to confine the happy hit to the Hambletonians, Geo. Palmer, 

 son of Ames' Bogus, reached a record of 2:19|-, alongside of Bodine, 

 for company as well as for sake of kinship. 



Volunteer, not yet ready to abandon his claims to success in the 

 same quarter, again came forward with St. Julien, a horse not yet 

 beaten, and who attained a record almost in his first races of 2:22^. 

 All of the above were from mares by Sayer's Harry Clay. 



And, to verify a prediction thrown out by me in my original 

 chapter on Volunteer, as published in t\\Q JAve Stock Journal^ \h% 

 big mare by Volunteer, whose dam was by Edward Everett and 

 grandam by Harry Clay, has, since the first sheets of this chapter 

 were written, made a record in 2:30 or better. 



Finally, it appears that the fame of Messenger Duroc, whose name 

 has been trumpeted more loudly than any horse in the land, rests on 

 the produce of mares by this same Harry Clay. Prospero, Reform, 

 Dame Trot, Elaine, Hogarth, Mansfield, Miranda and Marengo — all 

 came from daughters of this Harry Clay. And what has Messenger 

 Duroc to show outside of this list? 



