GIMCRACK. 433 



it in small degree, while his granddaughter, Amanda, transmitted 

 it to Duroc in greater degree than was ever seen in any other 

 member of the family. That would be no anomaly. 



I have shown that in the case of Tippoo, the supposed son of 

 Ogden's Messenger, there was a gait and a conformation, not entirely 

 identical, but quite analogous to this, and that it was traceable to 

 Gimcrack in about the same degree as the peculiar conformation of 

 Duroc. To any one who has studied the matter closely, nothing is 

 inore clear or unmistakable. The manner, gait and character of the 

 horse all declare it. 



Every descendant of Seely's American Star, of Mambrino Chief, 

 and Alraont or Thorndale, attests, in his way of going, his wide open 

 gait, and the peculiar action of the thigh and quarters, the presence 

 of the Duroc-Messenger union. Messenger Duroc was by Duroc, 

 from a daughter of Messenger, and was a thoroughbred. The first 

 American Star was similarly bred, according to all traces that have 

 come down to us. And let me ask, where have such trotting elements 

 been found in or exhibited by any other two thoroughbred horses this 

 country has ever produced? Both of these were trotters, and from 

 the last one and a mare by Henry, the little grandson of Diomed and 

 out of another daughter of Messenger, came the American Star, 

 whose fame as a trotter and the sire of trotters and the dams of trot- 

 ters, forms one of the brightest pages of our trotting history. It is clear 

 this last horse received nothing but his defects and imperfections 

 from Henry; his greatness as a trotter, and the richness of the trot- 

 ting elements he carried, came from the Duroc-Messenger blood of 

 which he was composed. 



The pure and rich qualities of this blood are seen in Volunteer and 

 in all his descendants. Its intensified trotting quality is seen in the 

 American Star family, but tainted and greatly corrupted by the 

 infirmities incident to in-breeding the Duroc and Henry blood, and in 

 the Mambrino Chief family its royal trotting quality, greatly rein- 

 forced by the union of the Messenger strains coming through Mam- 

 brino Paymaster, found their richest field of development and display, 

 marred, however, by the fact that the low-bred ancestry of the dam 

 of Mambrino Chief also furnished a suitable field in which to mani- 

 fest and develop the innate and deep-seated taint of the Duroc blood. 

 It is thus that the high and the low are compelled to run in the same 

 channels, but the wise breeder will be careful which element he will 

 reinforce. 



