CHAPTER XIII 



HAMLIN AND SPEED DEVELOPMENT 



Buffalo, April 16, 1888. 



The snow covered the ground when I first offered 

 to trot over any good track, equally accessible to 

 challenged and challenger, four of the get of 

 Mambrino King, foaled in 1885, bred, raised, de- 

 veloped and owned at Village Farm, against any 

 four of the same age, bred, raised, developed and 

 owned by the owner of any stallion having a record 

 of 2.22 and better, the said four to have been sired 

 after the stallion had obtained his fastest record. 

 There has been any quantity of wind, but no one 

 has stepped to the front with an acceptance of the 

 challenge, although the grass is now turning green 

 in the fields. I have not run from the offer or 

 dodged in any way and still stand ready to do as 

 I said I would do. I have simply declined to with- 

 draw the original challenge and accept counter prop- 

 ositions. General Tracy, who somewhat rashly 

 declared in the early part of the controversy that 

 he would not as a rule breed to a stallion which had 

 not shown an ability to trot in 2.20, has had hard 

 work to square himself with established facts, and 

 his last effort was a labored one. The proprietor 

 of Marshland is a logician, and I frankly confess 

 that I know of no one interested in breeding who 

 could so well write up his side, still it seems to me 

 that the General might, with much less work, have 

 produced a far better argument on the other side. 



126 



