24 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
England are descended from three or four animals 
foaled in the eighteenth century, and bred chiefly 
from Arab importations, so the American trotter of 
to-day can usually be referred to one or more of the 
following ancestors: Messenger, True Briton, and Di- 
omed, thoroughbreds ; Bellfounder, a Norfolk trotter ; 
Grand Bashaw, a Barb; Pilot, a Canadian pacer; and 
Blue Bull, a pacer from the State of Ohio. 
Of these horses Messenger has played the greatest 
part. He was a gray, foaled at Newmarket in Eng- 
land in the year 1780, and imported to this country. in 
1788. For a thoroughbred, he was a plain, almost 
coarse animal, with a big, bony head, low withers, up- 
right shoulders, and a rather short, straight neck. But 
his shoulders were deep and strong, his loins and quar- 
ters very powerful, his legs flatand clean. He had big 
knees, big hocks ; and his windpipe and nostrils were 
described by a contemporary writer as being “nearly 
twice as Jarge as ordinary.” He stood 153 hands high, 
and, “whether at rest or in motion, his legs were always 
in a perfect position.” The low withers, the upright 
shoulders, the plain head, Messenger inherited from 
Sampson, his great-grandsire,! a black horse; and these 
peculiarities, as well as the black color, were so ex- 
traordinary in a horse of Oriental breeding, that suspi- 
cions have been entertained as to Sampson’s pedigree, 
and some writers have asserted that his dam was a Lin- 
colnshire cart mare. But the best authorities do not 
appear to share these painful doubts, and Sampson may 
safely be regarded as a true thoroughbred, close to the 
1 Messenger was by Mambrino, by Engineer, by Sampson, by 
Blaze, by Flying Childers, by the Darley Arabian. Messenger’s dam 
was by Turf, by Matchem, by Cade, by the Godolphin Arabian. 
