eysdyke's hambletonian. 85 



He afterwards stood in New Jersey, and in 1849 stood at 

 the "Bull's Head" at New York with fee reduced to $15, yet 

 still without much patronage. 



His coarse, ungainly looks, together with his rather unpleas- 

 ant disposition, which, it is said, he transm itted, was greatly 

 against him. In appearance, Old Abdallah, as he was called, 

 was a brown bay, standing fifteen hands three inches, with a 

 coarse; bony head, a gamey, resolute eye with considerable 

 white around the edge of the lid (such as is often seen on pie- 

 bald horses), prominent ears, short neck, high, sharp withers, 

 being higher forward than behind, strong but rather narrow 

 loin, straight croup, tail light and set very high, being on a line 

 with the backbone and having but little hair on it. — being 

 what is called a rat-tail. 



He was an all around homely horse, but with a good set of 

 legs and feet. He was never broken to the harness, but under 

 the saddle could show about a three-minute clip, and had a 

 clean, open gait, and good knee action, and his get were mostly 

 all trotters. 



He was finally given to a farmer, who sold Mm to a Long 

 Island fisherman for $35, who, thinking he might utilize him in 

 delivering the products of the ocean to his customers, hitched 

 him to his cart. Abdallah, still having notions of his own, 

 considered the cart of more account for kindling wood, and 

 consequently kicked it into numerous fine pieces ; after which 

 the disgusted fisherman turned the horse loose upon the sands, 

 where he finally died of starvation, in November, 1854, at the 

 age of thirty-one years, as sound as a colt. 



Eysdyke's Hambletonian stands to-day at the very head of 

 all horses ever foaled in America, or the world, as the great 

 progenitor of trotters. He was very successful in the stud, and 

 sired 1,333 living foals. He made his owner, the late "William 

 Rysdyke, both rich and famous, and after his death, in March, 

 1876, strangers contributed to build him a lasting granite mon- 

 ument to perpetuate his memory. 



