PREPOTENCY. 57 



brothers, were as different as possible in the 

 stud. The get of Touchstone revealed their 

 paternity in a striking way, while Launcelot 

 was very wanting in impressiveness: u The 

 Touchstones have been mostly brown or dark 

 bay, and as a lot have shown a high form as 

 race horses; while the Launcelots have been 

 of all colors and below mediocrity on the 

 turf."* In America the name of Lexing- 

 ton, himself long since laid away beneath 

 his native blue-grass sod, is still a power 

 in the Thoroughbred studs, and some more 

 recent sires, such as Longfellow, King Ban, and 

 others, have had wide celebrity for prepotency. 

 Among trotting horses, such animals as Rys- 

 dyk's Hambletonian, Mambrino Patchen, Pilot 

 Jr., George Wilkes, and others, have displayed 

 this power in a highly remarkable degree. It 

 is a task only for a tyro to trace the blood of 

 the Hambletonians and the Patchens when 

 once pointed out, even among a large number 

 of promiscuously-bred horses. The indications 

 extend to resemblances in color, form, gait, 

 9 temper, vigor, endurance, and every conceiva- 

 ble quality. The influence exerted by these 

 sires was truly remarkable in their own get, 

 and the way in which their get have maintained 

 and perpetuated them greatly heightens the 

 wonder with which we regard them. 



* "Stonehenge" on "The Horse," quoted in Miles' "Cattle-Breeding." 



