//</ The American Thoroughbred 



at Melbourne where the crack jockey, Tom Hales, now dead and gone to an honest 

 man's just reward, had an average of two mounts per day; and he was then hugging 

 the lee shore of fifty pretty closely and could not ride at less than 122 pounds. Given 

 such a scale of weights here as prevail there, and our crack jockeys would be retained 

 in the saddle for several years longer than is the case at present. 



Lexington certainly got two great stake horses where either Leamington or Bonnie Scot- 

 land got one, they being his principal competitors at that period. Nor was it till after Lexing- 

 ton was dead that Bonnie Scotland was transferred to Belle Meade and given the first 

 fair chance of his life; and even then, poor old Bonnie was 23 years old. In all other 

 years these great sires were buried alive, one in Pennsylvania and the other first in 

 Ohio and then in Iowa, two states where there are but few thoroughbred mares ; 

 and the same was true of Balrownie, in a less degree, who was sent to Boston where 

 he did not average a half-dozen thoroughbred mares each year. Granted that Leam- 

 ington and bonnie Scotland could have been sent to Kentucky on their arrival and kept 

 there till death, I seriously doubt if Lexington would have headed the list more than six 

 years. Yet he was about the most uniform breeder that I ever heard of, in America or 

 elsewhere. And the reader must remember that in 1870 when Lexington headed the 

 list with $120,360, the big moneyed events were for three-year-olds and not for two- 

 year-olds, as at present. And for all that, with four such colts as Longfellow, En- 

 quirer,. Lyttleton and Hamburg to run for him, Leamington had to take second place to 

 the white-legged son of Boston and Alice Carneal. 



From 1850 to 1859, when Hanover first gained the top of the tree in America, 

 no stallion under 15 years old had ever headed the list, save Lexington, who w'a's 

 eleven in 1861, his first year of premiership. In 1902 came a smashing of the slate 

 when' "Augie" Belmont's fine horse Hastings, was first at nine years of age, as against 

 eleven for Stockwell, eleven for Newminster and ten for Orlando, in their first years 

 of premiership in England. It is a strange thing that a horse of such marvelous 

 prepotency as Lexington should never have gotten a sire above the second class, but 

 such is the stubborn and ineffaceable fact. The elder Belmont bred over $25,000 worth 

 of imported mares to Lexington in the hope of getting his equal as a sire ; and the 

 best he got was Kingfisher who, though great as a sire of broodmares, was barely out 

 of the third class as a sire of winners. And the same amount of money expended now 

 would not buy half as many mares. And yet I repeat what I said in another part of 

 this work that, during Lexington's lifetime there was not a year after 1862 that a man 

 could not buy ten of his yearlings, with a positive certainty that at least three of 

 them would turn out stake-winners, something that has not since been true of any 

 other stallion, whether native or imported. How the male line of such a wonderfully 

 prepotent sire ever came to be threatened with total extinction, as is now the case, 

 passes my comprehension. 



I herewith append a table of the largest American winners at two years old, be- 

 ginning in 1879 with Sensation (brother to Onondaga) who was the first of that age to 

 w-in even $10,000. 



Sensation $ 20,250 Potomac* $ 78,460 



Spinaway 16,250 His Highness 109,400 



Onondaga 17,960 Morello 5S,26o 



George Kinney I7,37O Domino 180,085 



Wanda 35,745 Butterflies 54,690 



Gen. Harding 16,635 Requital* 58,615 



Ban Fox 22,940 Ogden Imp 53,255 



Tremont 40,085 L'Alouette 42,290 



Emperor of Norfolk 37,O20 Martimas 43,565 



Proctor Knott 69,780 Mesmerist 49> I 5 2 



Chaos 63,55O Commandot 40,862 



* Won the Futurity; t won th; Matron Stakes. 



