'The American 'Thoroughbred 



I think the foregoing chart makes the proposition quite plain that Alice Carneal 

 was no such mare as Levity. If she were, why does her line not produce some good, 

 if not altogether great, sire besides Lexington? Take Levity's line and you find such 

 sires as Strathmore, Salvator, Volturno, Luke Blackburn in the fourth generation and 

 The Bard (sire of Gold Heels) in the fifth. Abdel Kader is the best sire from Alice 

 Carneal, after Lexington; and he got just one good horse, Algerine, whose dam was the 

 dam also of three such performers as Planet, Exchequer and Ninette. Any man who 

 studies pedigrees will agree with me that the merits of Levity are wide-spread and far- 

 reaching, while those of Alice Carneal are virtually limited to one sire and to three 

 performers Lexington, Umpire and Helmbold. If a gentleman were to commission 

 me to select mares for breeding purposes and I found two mares of equal individuality, 

 one tracing back to Levity and the other to Alice Carneal, I should be more willing 

 to pay $1,000 for the former than $600 for the latter. Levity bears the same relation 

 to America that Prunella does to England, in my way of reasoning, for I can call i;o 

 mare truly great whose line has run out in four generations as badly as Alice Carneal's 

 has done. 



A mare that you cannot well overlook in this connection is the Expedition marc 

 called Maid of the Oaks, foaled in 1817 and dam of that great sire Medoc, who was 

 pretty near a racehorse, having been beaten just twice in nine races. Medoc I must 

 rank as the first and foremost of all American sires between Sir Archy and Lexington. 

 I place him ahead of Boston because Boston got a large number of winners from the 

 daughters of Medoc; and also because Medoc got first-class performers (for that day, 

 at least) from mares that produced nothing of note from other sires. Take the great 

 Wagner who beat Grey Eagle in the big four-mile post stake of 1839 at Louisville; and 

 what would Wagner have done as a sire without the Medoc mares. And apropos of 

 Wagner let me relate a race which took place in 1840; and I reckon that Major Barak 

 G. Thomas, of Lexington, Ky., is the only living man who saw that race. There were 

 four starters, Gamma by Pacific, who had previously beaten Wagner at four-mile 

 heats; there was Wagner himself, carrying 118 pounds to the mare's 115; and there 

 were two Medoc colts, both four years old and carrying 100 pounds Red Bill and 

 Blacknose, the latter of whom will be found in the reversed pedigree just above given. 

 The race was at three-mile heats, of which Gamma won the first, Red Bill the second, 

 and Blacknose the third and fourth, Wagner being distanced in the third heat and the 

 Tennessee mare in the second. Next txrSir Archy and Lexington, this self-same Me- 

 doc clearly outclasses all native sires between 1810 and 1860. To this "Young Maid of 

 the. Oaks," as she is called in the stud book, trace Commando, Sensation, Onondag-a, 

 Potomac, Chesapeake, Glenmore, Linden, Eolian, Tenny, Ban Fox, King Fox, King 

 Lee and Ajax, thirteen cracks in their respective years and five of them above the aver- 

 age as sires. 



ARGENTILE, foaled 1839 by Bertrand, from Allegrante by Young Truffle, from im- 

 ported Phantomia.by the Derby winner, Phantom, is likewise an important ancestress. 

 To her trace such noted long-distance horses as Hubbard (whose record for 2^4 miles, 

 made in 1874, is still unbeaten), Katie Pease (a winner of over $20,000 in California 

 alone), Elkwood, Jerome Edger, Judge Curtis, Idler, Vestibule, C. H. Todd, Tormentor, 

 London, D'Artagnan, Terra Cotta, Mattie A. Ringmaster and Lizzie Dwyer, all above 

 the selling plater class and most of them big stake-winners in the last twenty-five years. 



Miss OBSTINATE, foaled 1829 by Sumpter, out of Jenny Slamerkin by Tiger, is an- 

 other great factor in American breeding, being the ancestress of such great mares as 

 Maiden, Charlotte Buford, Eagless, Ferida, Aella, Kathleen and Lizzie Lucas, and such 

 great male winners as Wild Irishman, Frankfort, Parole, Kingfish, George Kinney, 

 Rhadamanthus, Montana Regent, Poet Scout, Falsetto, Morello, Grey Planet, Steel 

 Eyes, Bulletin, Kinsman and Report. Several of these were first-class sires, especially 

 Falsetto. 



