50 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
heightened, and, until a few chance colts by him 
began to show great speed, he was held in the very 
lowest estimation.1 Moreover, his descendants are 
remarkable not only for speed, but for beauty and 
finish, and the term “Blue Bull” now suggests 
qualities the very opposite of those for which it 
was given. The Blue Bulls, however, are thought to 
lack gameness. 
Of the six horses that I mentioned in the beginning 
of this chapter as being, in a general way, the founda- 
tion stock of the American trotter, there remains only 
one to be described, and that is Diomed, a thorough- 
bred, and a contemporary of Messenger. Messenger 
as a sire of running horses was a failure. Of all his 
foals, only one, a filly called Miller’s Damsel,? at- 
tained distinction on the running track; but Messen- 
ger, though running bred, had good trotting action, and 
the gift of imparting it to his numerous descendants. 
Thus, as we have seen, he played a leading part in the 
development of the trotter. 
The case of Diomed is very different. He was a 
successful runner himself, and from him descend the 
stanchest, speediest runners that have appeared on 
the American turf. But he was not a trotter nor a 
sire of trotters, and his foals were few in number, so 
that upon the general harness horses of the country 
the influence of his blood was very slight. On what 
ground, then, can he be regarded as one of the half- 
dozen foundation horses from which the American 
trotter is chiefly derived ? 
1 He began his career precisely as did the Godolphin Arabian, 
and his value was discovered in the same accidental manner. 
2 And her dam was by a son of Diomed. 
