470 BLACKWOOD AND SWIGERT. 



as has been generally stated. The dam of Blackwood was by Mam- 

 brino Chief, and his grandam was a dun mare that came from Ohio, 

 and was called a three-minute trotter. His sire was Alexander's 

 Norman, a horse then hardlv known to fame. 



During the same season of 1805, Mr. Alexander bred another mare 

 to Norman, that was similar in blood to the dam of Blackwood. This 

 mare was Blandina, she being by Mambrino Chief, and her dam being 

 the Burch Mare by Brown Pilot, and he by Copperbottom. The Burch 

 Mare is distinguished as the dam of Rosalind, a mare that has attained 

 a record of 2:2 If. 



This mare, Blandina, is regarded as one of the best mares produced 

 by Mambrino Chief. Her foal of 1866 was a nice black colt, and was 

 named Swigert, after the then superintendent of " Woodburn Farm.'* 

 At the age of one year he was sold to Richard Richards, of Racine 

 county, "Wis. 



These two sons of Norman, and grandsons of Mambrino Chief, I have 

 seen separately, at an interval of nearly six months, and, after allowing 

 for the difference in condition, and the season of the year, I may say 

 that it is a rare thing for two stallions, bred in the same year, and by the 

 same breeder, to bear so close a resemblance to each other. They are 

 both black — although Swigert is entered in the Trotting Begister as a 

 brown — the only place he shows anything that could be called brown 

 being the side of the head and muzzle and flanks, where the color is 

 not so clear as elsewhere. Swigert is slightly larger in some respects 

 than Blackwood. He is 63 inches and a fraction in height, while 

 Blackwood is 62 inches. Their length of body, as reported to me — 

 not measured by myself — is 68 inches for one, and 68^ for the other, 

 and the girth is 72 inches for Blackwood and 74 for Swigert ; and 

 these measurements are probably correct, and show how closely the 

 two horses resemble each other in size — but in appearance they are 

 very similar indeed. Blackwood shows a small star, a left hind foot 

 white, and a little on the other, but Swigert has no white marks. 

 Their limb measurement, taken by myself, is almost identical in each 

 case — front cannon-bone, llf inches each, and forearm, 20^ inches for 

 Blackwood, and 204- inches for Swigert ; and, in the hindquarter, 39 

 inches from hip to hock, and a thigh 24^ inches for each. 



I have already, in Chapter XXIl, shown the origin of this 24^-inch 

 thigh to have been in the family of Mambrino Chief, inherited from 

 Dviroc; but if any one has any doubt about the inheritable and cer- 

 tain transmission of this anatomical feature, I will call his attention 



