338 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



who sold liim to a fislierman for |35. The fislierman tried to harness 

 him, but age had not subdued his ungovernable spirit, and he re- 

 belled with such violence that he was turned out and diea of neglect 

 and famine on the sandy beach of Long Island. This was in 

 November, 1854. He had trotted a mile in 3:10, it is stated as a four- 

 year-old, and considering that he never was broken, that this was his 

 natural gait, it must be conceded he had some gift of speed. 



Abdallah, as we have seen, got Rysdyk's Hambletonian out of the 

 Charles Kent mare, by imported Bellfounder, a reputed Norfolk 

 trotter, and the Kent mare's dam was One Eye, by Bishop's Hamble- 

 tonian, son of Messenger. Besides this greatest of trotting progeni- 

 tors, Abdallah got three trotters with records of 2:30 or better; many 

 of his daughters produced trotters, and sires and dams of trotters, 

 and others of his sons contributed in minor degrees to trotting- 

 lines, 



Hambletonian was foaled in 1849, and was that year bought, with 

 his dam, by William M. Rysdyk, of Chester, Orange County, New York, 

 who owned him until he died. He was a bay horse of excellent 

 structure, but very plain, the large head and Roman face especially 

 rendering him objectionable to the eye of the lover of form. Mr. 

 Rysdyk never was anxious to show the speed of his horse, but that 

 he possessed fair trotting capacity abundant evidence from many wit- 

 nesses demonstrates. As a three-year-old he trotted in public in 2:48, 

 and, considering the time and circumstances, it marked him as a 

 great natural trotter. This world-famous progenitor died March 27, 

 .1876. 



Nothing but the record-book of the trotting-turf — the Year-Book — 

 sutRces to adequately credit the Hambletonian family with all it has 

 accomplished on the trotting-turf, but to put the aggregate in brief 

 form I may say that forty of the sons and daughters of Hambletonian 

 have mile records ranging from the 2:17^ of Dexter to the 2:30 of 

 Lady Augusta; more than one hundred of Hambletonian's sons have 

 sired, in the aggregate, upward of 600 trotters, with records from 

 2:08f to 2:30, and about fifty of his daughters are the dams of trotters 

 ranging in speed from 2:12i: to 2:30. Hambletonian's sons are 

 Alexander's Abdallah, Aberdeen, Dictator, Edward Everett, Elec- 

 tioneer, Egbert, George Wilkes, Happy Medium, Harold, Jay Gould, 

 Masterlode, Messenger Duroc, Middletown, Sentinel, Strathmore, 

 Sweepstakes and Volunteer. These are not only great sires, but most 

 of them the heads of great sub-families. To follow these several 



