HORSE-RACING IN NEW YORK. 157 



hound, the Wliite Tnrk, Dodswovth, and Layton's Yiolet Barb 

 mare. 



It is undeniable that a vast number of the early Virginian 

 pedigrees are not susceptible of proof, owing to reasons amply 

 enumerated above ; and there is as little doubt that very 

 many have been fabricated, and are the merest of forgeries ; 

 still, it is clearly in evidence that many animals, and those the 

 most fashionable and successful foal-getters in the Southern 

 racing States, were of the unequalled stock above indicated. 



Where, as compared with England, the number of families 

 was few, the choice of stallions limited, and, more than all, the 

 original number of imported thoroughbred mares, as progeni- 

 trixes, yet more limited, it is evident that the horses of this era 

 must have been very much in-bred ; and it is worthy of remark, 

 that the old Virginia pedigrees, owing to the early infusion of 

 Godolphin Arabian and Croft's Partner blood, run through 

 fewer generations to Oriental parentage on both sides, than the 

 generality of English horses of the same date. It is said, also, 

 by those who remember the strain before it was intermixed with 

 the more recent English blood, that the horses of ante-revolu- 

 tionary, and early post-revolutionary fame, retained in a great 

 degree the Arab and Barb or Turk characteristics in height, 

 figure, and qualities ; and possessed far more of what our ances- 

 tors intended to convey by the words a Kacer in a high form, 

 than of what we should esteem perfection in the modern fashion- 

 able race-horse. 



It will be observed, in the communication to which I have 

 referred, that it was not until the year 1819, that the citizens of 

 New York began fully to appreciate the utility and practical 

 excellence of horse-racing, or to give it such encouragement as 

 it had always received in Virginia and Maryland ; where the 

 majority in numbers, and the whole, one might say, in wealth, 

 enterprise and education, of the white population, were coun- 

 try gentlemen of athletic habits, out-of-door tastes, liberal hands 

 and open hearts, which belong every where, and belong, it 

 seems to me, alone, to rural aristocracies. 



And, again, it was not until ten years later, in the autumn 

 of 1829, that any regular publication was set on foot, for the 

 avowed purpose of recovering as much as was possible of the 



