ST CLAIR 771 



REPLY. 



" Dear Sir : Mr. Roberts of Nevada county, while he owned St. Clair, was 

 called upon by the man who brought the horse to California, he having had him. 

 from his father, who bred him near Springfield, 111. This visitor insisted that 

 Mr. Roberts should write St. Glair's pedigree down. This Mr. Roberts did 

 on the fly leaf of his ledger, although he felt no interest in the matter, and 

 cared nothing for the pedigree of this horse. But the man said St. Clair 

 should prove valuable on account of his breeding. The ledger and Mr. 

 Roberts' effects were destroyed within a few years by fire, but he could re- 

 k call afterward that the name " Cock of the Rock " occurred in pedigree. 

 He remembered that because it struck him as a singular name. Mr. 

 E. H. Miller Jr., made exhaustive efforts to trace St. Clair nearly 20 years 

 ago. This was one thing Mr. Roberts told him. 



Yours, 



WILBUR FIELD SMITH ". 



From W. H. Black, Esq., Elgin, 111., we learn that a son, bred in Illinois, 

 of Barden Morgan was taken to Springfield, 111., and kept there, season of 

 1842, by a member of the Illinois legislature. It is quite possible that this 

 horse was the sire of St. Clair. 



The following extract concerning this family is from the Palo Alto 

 Catalogue of Gov. Stanford : 



" The St. Clairs labor under the disadvantage of the founder of the 

 family being in the unknown class, though by the best possible of all tests, 

 public performances, they are not only known but renowned wherever fast 

 trotters are admired. Reasoning from analogy, the breeding of St. Clair 

 must have been high. Among all the St. Clairs ever seen on the track or 

 road, with one exception, there was the highest quality exhibited. Lady 

 St. Clair, who had the fastest five miles on record, had the form and finish 

 of a thoroughbred, and every one of the St. Clair mares, and even the grand- 

 daughters at Palo Alto, closely approximate the same model. Stallions 

 of inferior breeding do not beget such animals, and while a veil obscures 

 the actual blood of St. Clair, the form, finish, spirit and capabilities of his 

 descendants are better certificates of merit than the genealogy extending to 

 the royal mares, if lacking these characteristics. Then when to these are united 

 the most wonderful aptitude to acquire the fast trotting gait, when in the 

 second generation they have conquered and occupy the highest place in three 

 instances, in this case the unknown must be acknowledged, so far as actual 

 merit goes, to be potent. Lady St. Clair, Mayfly and Mayflower were daugh- 

 ters. The former paced five miles in 12 :54^, and likewise showed a gait 

 that gave promise of great speed if cultivated. Mayfly trotted nearly 20 

 years ago in 2 130^, at that time about the top notch in California, and 

 Mayflower, encumbered with fore shoes which weighed nearly two pounds 

 each, and with rolls of shot almost as ponderous on each front pastern, made 

 a mile, in 2 130^ . This was also done in the early days of trotting on this 

 coast, which gives it greatest significance. After years of constant labor haul- 

 ing heavy loads, and undergoing such abuse as would have broken the hearts 



