430 UiNGULATA. 



first sight to be extravagant, but when it is found upon investigation 

 that the Messenger blood crops up in almost all the best American trot- 

 ters of the present century, the figures are not too high. 



The first Kentucky sire which seems to have done great good to the 

 trotting stock of that sporting State was Abdallah, who was a grandson 

 of Messenger. From Abdallah's loins sprang by far the best trotting 

 sire that the United States have hitherto produced, whose name was 

 Rysdyk's Hambletonian ; and in the " List of Trotters with Records 

 of 2 : 25 or Better," in the agricultural paper the National Live Stock 

 Journal, published at Chicago, it appears that Hambletonian is to the 

 trotting turf what Touchstone is to the running course. Hiram Wood- 

 ruff believes that the Messenger blood existed in the most historical horse 

 ever bred in Hindoostan, whose name was Lylee, and who was the 

 favorite of Runjeet Singh, " the Lion of the Punjab." It is known that 

 Runjeet spent enormous sums upon his stud ; that his bridles and saddles 

 were inlaid with gold and studded with precious stones; and that the 

 Maharajah himself was a desperately hard rider. In order to get pos- 

 session of his incomparable gray stallion Lylee, Runjeet Singh used to 

 boast that he had spent six hundred thousand pounds and the lives of 

 twelve thousand men. When the fame of Lylee first reached Runjeet's 

 ears, the horse was the property of Yan Mohammed Khan, one of the 

 Punjabee princes, who had his capital at Peshawur. Runjeet opened 

 negotiations to get hold of Lylee, and having failed, went to war for that 

 purpose. After a long contest the arms of the Maharajah prevailed, and 

 the first condition upon which he offered peace was that Lylee should be 

 ceded to him by his vanquished foe. After an infinite number of evasions 

 and subterfuges resorted to by Mohammed Khan, the horse became the 

 property of Runjeet, but he had to fight another war in order to retain 

 him. Lylee, who was believed to be the son of an English thorough- 

 bred, was seen in 1839 by some English officers, and was "a flea-bitten 

 gray, very old, standing sixteen hands high," and with all the character- 

 istics of the Messenger blood. 



From Messenger are descended Abdallah, Hambletonian, Volunteer, 

 Mambrino Chief, Edward Everett, Alexander's Abdallah, Conklin's 

 Abdallah, Dexter, and a host of famous trotting-mares. But, richly 

 though our sportsmen are indebted to the Messenger blood, it would 

 be injustice to deny that they owe still more to the skill, patience, 

 and persistency lavished upon training and bringing the trotter to 



