220 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



into any of our trotting strains of blood with- 

 out running into a thoroughbred cross, or else 

 running into obscurity. I should certainly 

 very greatly prefer that my trotting brood 

 mare or stallion, after showing a few crosses 

 of Hambletonian, Pilot, Mambrino Chief, or 

 Clay blood, should trace to a thoroughbred an- 

 cestry than to the dunghill, because in the 

 former case we know that we are anchored 

 upon a solid foundation of courage and endur- 

 ance. But we have our trotting structure al- 

 ready reared to handsome proportions upon 

 this foundation; why then should we overturn 

 what has already been done and commence 

 again to build on the same rock? To do so is, 

 in my opinion, a step in the wrong direction. 



This position is so self-evident so perfectly 

 in accord with the known laws of heredity 

 that I am surprised that it should be ques- 

 tioned by any man of ordinary intelligence. 

 That mares with one or two trotting crosses 

 on a thoroughbred pedigree are preferable, 

 even for breeding trotters, to mongrels of no 

 individual merit and no pedigree, no one in his 

 sober senses will deny; and that mares by 

 Hambletonian, or George Wilkes, or Mambrino 

 Patchen, or Pilot Jr., or Mambrino Chief, or 

 any other noted trotting sire, out of thorough- 

 bred dams, should themselves produce great 

 trotters when coupled with a well-bred trot- 



