BACE COLTS IN TRAIN. 43 



ing to it is placed in a position to show whether they 

 have this family characteristic. Men pay long prices for 

 Hambletonian, Membrino or Pilot colts that have never 

 felt the weight of harness, because many of their relations 

 have proved fast, and they are generally well repaid for 

 their investment by subjecting them to long and skillful 

 training. My predilections for the thorough-bred may 

 have arisen from sleeping with them when a boy. My 

 heart would nearly break when one of our stable was 

 beaten, or burst with joy when any were victorious. 

 These remembrances may bias my judgment, but I have 

 often thought that, were the race colts placed in train as 

 trotters, we would see as many of them first class per- 

 formers as any of the strains I have just mentioned. 

 Both the Hambletonians and Membrinos had their origin 

 in the purest streams of the turf blood. 



The admixture of Bellfounder, and other coarse strains, 

 cannot have given them any additional qualities for rapid 

 locomotion at a trotting gait, while, if the little black 

 pacing pony, Pilot, had been confined to mares of his 

 own degree, we would never have seen one fit for a 

 butcher's cart or baker's wagon. But this is a subject we 

 must take some rainy afternoon to discuss in all its rami- 

 fications, as it is one of great weight to you, expecting to 

 breed as well as train trotters. 



PUPIL. You again please me exceedingly, as I am 

 well convinced that the better bred the trotter is," the 

 more likely he is to perform great feats, and argue it so 

 much that I am considered a monomaniac on that subject. 

 There is no part of the business I am so taken up with as 

 breeding and rearing the colts. The interest never flags 

 with me for a moment, from the time the young thing 

 first gleefully capers round his mother till it is old enough 

 to attract the attention of a purchaser ; even then the 

 feeling of affection will follow, and I will rejoice in 



