114 TYPES AND BREEDS 



Origin. — Orange County, N^ew York, was the original seat 

 of this breed; then Kentucky, and eventually the States in 

 general, California in particular. The chief interest in trotters 

 centered about ^ew York City, where the improvement in the 

 construction of roads gave a great stimulus to road driving.- 

 Their foundation blood lines were laid in Orange County. 



The two most notable foundation sires in America were im- 

 ported Messenger and Justin Morgan. 



Messenger was a gray Thoroughbred, six generations re- 

 moved from the Darley Arabian, imported from England, as an 

 eight-year-old in 1788. He stood most of his life about Xew 

 York and Philadelphia, where he left numerous progeny. Al- 

 though himself a running race horse, brought to this country for 

 the improvement of runners, he soon became noted as a sire of 

 trotters, and upon his trotting sons and grandsons, daughters 

 and granddaughters^ the Standardbred is based. It has been 

 suggested that the fact that the horse stock about New York 

 was descended from the horses brought over by the Dutch, and 

 that a family of trotters were native to Friesland, would account 

 for so many of the get of Messenger being trotters. The infer- 

 ence is that Messenger imparted the speed and stamina, while his 

 get derived their instinct to trot from their Dutch-bred dams. 

 The most notable of Messenger's sons was Mambrino, the sire of 

 Mambrino Paymaster and Abdallah. Mambrino Paymaster in 

 turn sired Mambrino Chief, from whom the Mambrino family 

 of trotters and the Chief family of Saddle horses of Kentucky 

 are descended. Abdallah sired Hambletonian 10, the most 

 conspicuous sire of the Standardbred. 



Hambletonian lo, or Eysdyk's Hambletonian, is regarded 

 as the progenitor of tlie Standardbred, so far as one individ- 

 ual can claim that distinction (Fig. 82). He was foaled 

 tho property of Jonas Seeley near Chester, Orange County, 

 'New York, in 1849, but soon passed into the hands of the man 

 he made famous, Wm. M. Rysdyk. iJ^otwithstanding the fact 

 that his stud fees later amounted to $184,725.00, Rysdyk dick- 

 ered a long time before the purchase price of $125.00 for the 

 mare and foal was agreed upon. Tliis would indicate that neither 

 party to the transaction had any conception of the ultimate value 



