206 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



as a distinct breed. As the thoroughbred was 

 the result of the inherent love of the turf and 

 the chase so characteristic of the people of 

 Great Britain, so the American trotting horse 

 is the result of a fashion that has demanded 

 the fastest and stoutest trotting horses in the 

 world for driving on the road; and to this end 

 we have selected and bred until our horses 

 clearly surpass all others in this particular. 

 Among these horses we have several recognized 

 families of especial prominence, all more or less 

 related, all more or less distinguished for the 

 one quality of speed as trotters, but each pos- 

 sessing features that are to some extent pecul- 

 iarly its own, but none of them entitled to be 

 separately classed as a breed. 



Of these we may mention the Hambletonians, 

 descended on the paternal side from imported 

 Messenger (a thoroughbred) through his son 

 Mambrino (also a thoroughbred), and Mam- 

 brino's son Abdallah, out of a mare of unknown 

 blood, who in turn got Rysdyk's Hambletonian, 

 out of a mare by Bellfounder (an imported 

 Norfolk trotter), and his second dam probably 

 having two crosses to imported Messenger. 

 Through Rysdyk's Hambletonian, on the pater- 

 nal side, we have the Volunteers, the Edward 

 Everetts, the Alexander's Abdallahs, the Al- 

 monts, the Messenger Durocs, the Sentinels, the 

 Electioneers; the Happy Mediums, the Wilkeses, 



