GENERAL WASHINGTON. 415 



doubt that had she escaped accident and continued in health on th& 

 turf, she would have stood at the head of the list. I do not suppose 

 she was one of the kind that, like Goldsmith Maid, could work on in 

 that frictionless way and keep in ready repair at all times, each day 

 evincing improvement until she reached the age of twenty years, but 

 she would have attained a strength and a degree of speed that would 

 have enabled her to now and then make a record which would have- 

 been rarely reached by the best trotters which have yet appeared. 



Her greatness as a trotter is to be estimated by her known superior- 

 ity over her famous competitors. They were Dexter, Mountain Boy, 

 Goldsmith Maid, American Girl, Lucy, George Palmer. She was 

 in her prime, and was showing a rate of speed which had not been 

 attained at that time by any trotter, although she had not in any race 

 equaled the time of Dexter, and her time has since been surj^assed by 

 nearlv all of the srreat ones ao-ainst whom she trotted in those davs. 

 But all who knew her regarded her as still good for the front place, 

 and her chances for improvement were quite as good as any of the 

 entire number. But her trotting career once ended she was long 

 looked upon as the greatest mare for breeding purposes that this 

 country had ever furnished, and of the correctness of this I have no sort 

 of doubt. 



She raised a son and a daughter by General Knox, but the great gulf 

 of disparity between the two will raise doubts as to the propriety of 

 the union, which can only be settled by the actual success of the 

 progeny. The blood forces may have so worked that General Washing- 

 ton will reproduce in high degree the excellences of both of his parents;, 

 on the other hand, he may take after one in this particular and the 

 other in a different, and no one can determine until the result is actu- 

 ally seen, what it will be. The two parents belong to classes far 

 apart, and changes from one to the other in such cases must be made 

 by gradual approaches. 



When I saw General Washington as a two-year-old he showed in 

 his general form much of the Mambrino Chief appearance. I have 

 not seen him since, and have been unable to obtain the basis of a 

 proper estimate. Great as the regret may have been over the 

 accident by which the trotting turf lost so great a luminary, to my 

 mind the greatest cause of regret is found in the fact that Lady 

 Thorn was not sent to Hambletoniau. The result would, in my 

 opinion, have been (if a male) the most valuable stallion ever bred in 

 this country. Hambletonian with his rear leverage of 41 inches^ 



