APPENDIX. 335 



merit in tlie American horse, Messenger lias been admitted the chief 

 foundation on which the greatest trotting families have been built. But 

 just as the English race horse was founded on Oriental blood, and in 

 years of selection and development for a special purpose was bred to 

 a point of excellence unknown to the Oriental, so the most unpre- 

 tentious trotting-blood of to-day is superior to what the direct blood 

 of Messenger vvas. 



The speed-transmitting power of Messenger, if it could be now 

 drawn upon directly, would be a weak and sluggish element in the 

 swift and intense speed currents of to-day. Still none the less did it 

 play its part as an original source. 



Messenger was a grey horse foaled in 1780, bred by John Pratt of 

 Newmarket, England, and, according to the English Stud-Book, was 

 got by Mambrino, out of a daughter of Turf. Mambrino was by 

 Engineer, son of Sampson, by Blaze, by Flying Childers, son of the 

 Darley Arabian, a horse imported into England from the Levant, in 

 the reign of Queen Anne. Turf, the reputed sire of the dam of Mes- 

 senger, was by Matchem, son of Cade, by the Godolphin Arabian. 



Messenger was a fair race-horse but was not strictly thoroughbred, 

 and when we reflect what he accomplished in the production of horses 

 of speed superior to any of their day at the trotting-gait, we are almost 

 irresistibly forced to the conclusion that in the streams of unknown 

 and uncertain blood remotely pouring into his inheritance some subtle 

 influence was carried that favored the trotting-gait. Indeed this is 

 not mere speculation, but history; for in Pick's Turf Eegister we find 

 this statement concerning Mambrino, the sire of Messenger: " Mam- 

 brino was likewise sire of a great many excellent hunters and strong, 

 useful road-horses. And it has been said that from his blood the 

 breed of horses for the coach was brought nearly to perfection." 



Messenger was imported to Philadelphia in 1788; was kept in 

 Pennsylvania and New Jersey for the first six years of his life in 

 America, and was variously kept on Long Island, in Dutchess, West- 

 chester and Orange Counties, New York, and in New Jersey, until his 

 death near Oyster Bay, Long Island, in 1808. As to what degree of 

 trotting-action Messenger possessed we have no evidence; but this 

 much is certain, that he left progeny noted for their speed and endur- 

 ance on the road, and when in these descendants this road-gait was 

 developed and intensified by use — and they were mated with a view 

 to producing progeny superior in this special qualification to them- 

 selves — each generation naturally reached a higher plane of excel- 

 lence than its predecessors. 



