A GREAT HORSE 



correct, but extreme speed seems, to-day, still as char- 

 acteristic of the cross as ever, not only as exemplified 

 by Cresceus himself, but by Direct, 2 105 J, who has the 

 double Hambletonian-Star cross and was the sensa- 

 tional speed sire of 1900. 



True, Robert McGregor, Cresceus's sire, is not an 

 exponent of the immediate combination of the two 

 strains, but he is from a Star mare and by a grandson 

 of Hambletonian. Cresceus's top line thus goes to 

 neither of the two prominent families of the day, 

 George Wilkes nor Electioneer. But it does go to 

 Alexander's Abdallah, really, the present writer be- 

 lieves, the greatest progenitor of the Hambletonian 

 family, whose blood is so potent and so persistent 

 that neither the ."slings and arrows of outrageous for- 

 tune," which carried him off in his youth, nor the sub- 

 sequent vagaries of fashion, have been able to neu- 

 tralize its influence, and never have its wonderful 

 qualities been so apparent as at this moment, with Cres- 

 ceus signalizing one male channel ; the extraordinary 

 Nutwood family another, and Altamont one of the 

 leading 2:10 sires another, while Georgena, 2 107^ ; 

 Lord Derby, 2 :o6J, and many others of the best recent 

 performers, show close female and collateral crosses. 



Major Edsall, 2 129, the grandsire of Cresceus, was 

 not the best of Alexander's Abdallah's sons. In him- 

 self he was not to be compared with Almont, Belmont, 

 nor Wood's Hambletonian. So far as the bare records 

 go he also ranks below Thorndale or Jim Monroe. 



