534 THE HORSE. 



horse, in a great race for ten thousand dollars. Columbus was 

 the first horse to trot three miles in less than eight minutes. 



The celebrated horse Dutchman made his appearance on the 

 turf in 1833. His pedigree was never ascertained. In his work 

 on the trotting horse, Hiram Woodruff says of him: "For the 

 combined excellences of speed, bottom, and constitutional vigor, 

 equal to the carrying on of a long campaign and improving on it, 

 Dutchman has had few, if any equals, and certainly no superior." 

 In 1836 he was entered in sweepstakes with Fanny Pullen and 

 Confidence. Fanny Pullen was the dam of Trustee, the first horse 

 to trot twenty miles within an hour. Confidence was a handsome 

 bay horse, afterwards purchased for the well-known English 

 horseman, Mr. Osbaldestone, and' taken out of the country. 

 Dutchman won the race in 5 m. 17 s., and 5 m. 18$ s. He 

 afterwards beat Lady Suffolk in two straight two-mile heats in 5 

 m. 11 s., and 5 m. 13 s. His race with Ratler, a horse that Hiram 

 Woodruff declared to be the best trotter ever taken to England, 

 was one of the most closely contested and best three-mile races 

 ever trotted. For eleven miles the horses were never clear of each 

 other; and when Dutchman left Ratler in the twelfth, it was by 

 inches only. In 1839, on the Beacon Course, New Jersey, Dutch- 

 man made his great and imperishable record of three miles in 7 

 in. 32 s. He trotted one mile of this race in 2 m. 28 s., which 

 was the best one-mile time that had then been made, as the three- 

 mile time is the best made up to the present writing. 



Long Island, the scene of so many of the triumphs of the 

 trotting horse, is equally distinguished as the birth-place of some 

 of the most celebrated. Messenger was kept at its western ex- 

 tremity, and his blood was disseminated over the whole island. 

 From one of his descendants, Engineer, came Lady Suffolk, for 

 many years the unquestioned mistress of the trotting-turf. She 

 was bred in Suffolk county, whence her name, and when three 

 years old was purchased by David Bryant, from the farmer who 

 raised her, for ninety dollars. She was a gray, raw-boned, slab- 

 sided, homely animal ; but deep in the chest and muscular in the 

 arms and quarters, which enabled her to keep up a wonderfully 

 long and clearing stride. Her first appearance on the turf was in 

 1838, when she was fiv.e years old. From that time she was kept 

 steadily at work for sixteen years, trotting one hundred and sixty- 

 one races, of which she won eighty-eight. Her owner, though 

 devotedly attached to her, did not use the discretion in her 

 management which is necessary to secure success, even with the 

 most reliable animals; so, despite her extraordinary speed and 

 bottom, the list of her defeats is nearly as long as that of her 

 victories. She was beaten by Dutchman, Repton, Lady Victory, 

 Lafayette, Independence, Aaron Burr, and by Americus in a 



