MESSEHGEE AKD SIE AECHY. 323 



ian, bred by Mr. Backman understood to be five thou- 

 sand dollars his dam by Wai deck's Messenger, by Wildair, 

 out of a Messenger Mare, and his grandam by Mambrino. 

 Considering these cases that are taken from the records 

 without exercising much care in the selection, but copied 

 as I came to them your ground that there have been more 

 trotters of the Messenger strain than all others put to- 

 gether is incontrovertible. 



Messenger stood for nearly twenty years in the neigh- 

 borhood of New York, and from his popularity and low 

 price of service eight dollars to insure had all the busi- 

 ness he could do. People were so well satisfied with the 

 value of his blood, that they sought so obtain as much of 

 it as they could, even resorting to incestuous crosses to 

 further this end. The fine road horses of the first gen- 

 eration were succeeded by the fast trotters of the second 

 and third, and the numerous progeny in that section were 

 the best they had for the turf, road, and track. The only 

 parallel case in breeding with which I am acquainted is that 

 of Sir Archy. The great age to which he lived the same 

 as Messenger, 28 years and the value of his stock, brought 

 him so much patronage that in all probability there never 

 was a living horse with so numerous a family. Close 

 inbreeding produced no ill effects that I could ever discover. 

 Some of the fastest of their day were double Archys. George 

 Martin, by a son, his dam a daughter, conquered those 

 hitherto deemed invincible, and placed himself among the 

 very first for speed and bottom. Fashion's dam, the re- 

 nowned Bonnets o' Blue, was bred in the same way. To 

 enumerate Sir Archy's victorious descendants, and write 

 their names, would appear like the index of the American 

 Stud Book, as there has hardly been a good, or a very 

 good, race horse on the American turf not related to him, 

 generally in direct descent. It is not improbable that, if 

 Sir Archy had occupied Messenger's place, he would have 



