GEORGE WILKES. 255 



won it with ease in three straight heats — 2:24^, 

 2:27^4, 2:32^. The gelding had 'a leg/ and Hiram 

 took his own time." 



The balance of the races in which George Wilkes 

 started can be found in "Chester's Complete 

 Trotting and Pacing Record." As for the pedi- 

 gree of George Wilkes, those who consult the colored 

 prints which were issued when he was racing, will 

 find that he was represented as being by Hamble- 

 tonian, dam by Mambrino. In the seventies, when 

 he was becoming famous as a sire, some one in North- 

 ern New York found a clue to the breeding of Dolly 

 Spanker and eventually presented evidence to show 

 that she was by Henry Clay, dam Telegraph, by 

 Baker's Highlander. This pedigree was accepted 

 and appeared in the "Trotting Register" until after 

 that publication was transferred to the "American 

 Trotting Register Association," when a more thor- 

 ough investigation showed conclusively that Dolly 

 Spanker was not by Henry Clay, and now the breed- 

 ing of George Wilkes, the founder of the greatest 

 family of trotters, reads "by Hambletonian, dam 

 Dolly Spanker, breeding unknown." The tendency to 

 pace which George Wilkes showed as a colt, and which 

 has appeared in all of his get that have come 

 under my observation, came without a doubt through 

 Dolly Spanker, and if her breeding is ever learned, 

 it will no doubt be found that like Strathmore, the 

 only other pacer that I ever heard of by Hamble- 

 tonian, she will, like Lady Waltemire, have a pacing 

 cross close up. Possibly her dam may have been 

 brought on from the West by drovers, like Shanghai 

 Mary, and, like her, belonged to the Cadmus family, 

 which gave the turf Smuggler and Pocahontas. 



