386 TUE BASHAWS AND CLAYS. 



while the Clay family proper has to its credit forty-four performers, 

 and five hundred and twenty-four heats in 2:30 or better, and a time 

 record of 2:16^; and the aggregate record of the whole family shows 

 seventy-five performers, and eight hundred and five heats in 2:30 or 

 better. 



The ability to transmit the trotting and improving quality adheres 

 to the family. There appears to be no retrograde as we advance 

 from the original source. I have shown in a previous chapter, with 

 regard to the Diomed blood, that no stallion strong in this blood can 

 retain his capacity as a trotting sire; that of the descendants of 

 Seely's American Star, no grandson has produced a trotter in the 

 2:30 list, while the descendants of Henry Clay bring out performers 

 in the 2:25 list in the fourth generation, and in the sixth from Young 

 Bashaw. 



The great age to which several members of the family have lived 

 —Henry Clay reaching the age of thirty — and the large number of 

 stallions in their ranks in each generation, have given the blood a 

 wide dissemination, and at this day, crossed with the other trotting 

 bloods, the Bashaws and Clays maintain their position in the front 

 rank, notwithstanding the surpassing ability and success of Abdallah 

 and Hambletonian as sires. While the other line of blood has had 

 no stallion the equal of either of these, the number and great respecta- 

 bility of the Bashaw and Clay stallions have given the family a great 

 and well merited prominence. 



