158 Tire HORSE. 



lost early pedigrees of the magnates of the American Turf, and 

 for the preservation of authentic records for the time to come. 

 This work, Skinner's American Turf Register and Sporting 

 Magazine, continued for ten years to do good service for the 

 cause of the Turf, and, with Edgar's stud-book, which unfor- 

 tunately never was completed, constitutes the first and only au- 

 thority, presented to the public, on which reliance can be placed 

 as to the blood of animals asserted to be thoroughbred. 



In the year 1839, the magazine passed into the hands of that 

 most able editor and admirable turf-writer, Mr. William T. Por- 

 ter, of New York, than whom the Turf of America has had no 

 more consistent advocate, or more strenuous defender. In the 

 close of 1844, the Magazine was, it is greatly to be regretted, 

 discontinued, the encouragement not being found adequate to 

 the support of both the monthly periodical and the weekly 

 Spirit of the Times, both issued from the same office, and made 

 up in some part of the same materials. 



This cessation it is hardly possible too greatly to deplore ; 

 for, although Mr. Richards continues to prepare and publish a 

 yearly Turf-Eegister, from the old office, containing a full and 

 accurate record of races and racing events, and a register of the 

 winning horses of the year, there is, of course, no space for such 

 discussion of pedigrees, disputed or not fully established, or 

 such debate on intricate questions of breeding, running, time, 

 weights, riders and the like, in its pages, as were so valuable in 

 those of the famous old magazine ; inadequate as even it was 

 to fill the place of that great desideratum of the American horse 

 world, a complete and careful annual American stud-book. 



These thoughts may seem in some sort superfluous ; but, 

 without having introduced them, I should find it somewhat dif- 

 ficult to explain what I mean to convey, when I state that I 

 consider the commencement of authentic American horse- 

 racing to be about coeval with the commencement of the sec- 

 ond quarter of the present century, or, at the most, a few years 

 earlier. 



I, by no means, intend or desire by this expression to under- 

 estimate the genuineness of the blood, to deny the excellence, 

 speed, stoutness, or authenticity of performance of the cele- 

 brated worthies of ante-revolutionary, or early post-revolution- 



