436 MAMBRINO CHIEF. 



In this county this mare was regarded as a good one, and raised 

 the then greatest trotters and the greatest trotting stallion ever pro- 

 duced in the county. She produced two of these, including the great 

 trottino- sire, from a horse that had no character as a trotting sire, 

 except that which was latent and suppressed and could only be called 

 out by a mare that possessed just such qualities as a Duroc-Messen- 

 o-er — close and strong in the blood of that union — and one which in 

 his entire life never found the precise elements and qualifications 

 requisite for such a success save in this one mare. 



Moreover, she was a mare with many elements of coarseness and a 

 possible background of low breeding; but for all that, the qualities 

 she presented ready for use, those which gave her character, were of 

 the best that could have been found in any combination. If she 

 could have only found such a stallion as Abdallah or Royal George, 

 she would have produced a trotting sire that for impressiveness and 

 grand trotting quality would have surpassed Hambletonian as far as 

 the latter surpassed Ohio Bellfounder. The one great lament of the 

 enthusiastic breeder must forever be that this mare did not mate with 

 one or the other of these great trotting stallions; and this must go 

 hand in hand with the other undying lament that some great daugh- 

 ter of Mambrino Chief — old Lady Thorn, Jessie Pepper, Monogram, 

 Blandina, or Fayette Belle — did not mate with the great Hamble- 

 tonian. 



It remains to be noticed that, while the original union of the blood 

 was formed by the Diomed sire on the Messenger dam, the richer 

 fruits came out when the union of Mambrino Paymaster on the Mes- 

 seno-er Duroc dam occurred; and in like manner since that cross, the 

 union of the Messenger-bred sire on the Duroc- Messenger, or Mam- 

 brino Chief dam. has been productive of the best results. It is not 

 believed that the reverse order of crossing will be in any degree 

 advantageous in the early stages of the union, although we have 

 abundant evidence that the remote Duroc cross in the Duroc-Messen- 

 ger union is often found in a superior and highly impressive stallion, 

 such as Administrator, Almont, Volunteer and Governor Sprague. I 

 have been assured by two gentlemen, each of whom know the earlier 

 sons of Duroc from Messenger mares, that, in the apparent character- 

 istics of the two horses, those of Messenger predominated, in gait, 

 appearance and general ways and manner, but that in the next gen- 

 eration, or the produce of these Duroc-Messenger stallions, the Duroc 

 o-ait and ways were more apparent, and that in successive generations 



