WAXT OF KKGISTKIES. 129 



the Ainericau Tuif; since it lias materiallj increased the diffi- 

 cultj of ascertaining liow far records or registries have been 

 l^reserved, or were kept from the first. When men were fio-ht- 

 iug for their hearths, with the halter litej-allj about their necks, 

 and daily expecting their houses to be burned over their heads, 

 they had little time, one may well imagine, to be attending to 

 the pedigrees of thoroughbred horses, or to preserving reo-ular 

 entries. It is to be presumed, moreover, where many heads 

 of families were absent from their estates with the army, or 

 were obliged to expatriate or conceal themselves from the con- 

 sequences of proscription and outlawry, that many irregularities 

 must have occurred from want of due attention to the studs 

 themselves, as well as to the records of them. Many documents 

 must likewise have been destroyed by conflagrations, or other 

 accidents, and lost in the hurry of removals. And, secondly, it 

 is most unfortunate that no regular Turf Eegister was ever set 

 on foot in America until so late as 1829. But, on the whole 

 it may be regarded as remarkable, rather, that so many pedi- 

 grees can be unequivocally followed out than that a few should 

 be obscure and untraceable farther than to an imported mare. In 

 fact, so that the owners were satisfied that the imported mares 

 were undoubted thoroughbreds, out of a well-known and accre- 

 dited English Turf stable, they seemed to have received them 

 almost as undoubtingly, as did our still more remote ancestors 

 those of oriental blood, without much questioning, or going 

 beyond the record. 



For curiosity and precision, it is to be regretted that a few 

 of our genealogies cannot be traced a little farther and more 

 definitely ; but it must be conceded as a fact, which cannot be 

 questioned or doubted, fully established botli by their own per- 

 formances and by the unfailing transmission of their hereditary 

 qualities, that our American horses are as unequivocally 

 thoroughbred, as are any of those English champions, whose 

 blood no one ever dreams of disputing, which go back, like that 

 of Eclipse himself, through Bustler or Kockwood, or ,inany 

 others of equal renown, to an nnhnown dam or sire. 



It will be observed, and it is not a little remarkable, how 

 very many of the earliest Virginia and Maryland importation 

 run through Partner, on the one hand, to Spanker and Span- 

 VoL. I.— 9 



