TROTTING HORSES. 61 
composition, and the baker’s mare belonged to the 
incomparable Morgan strain. Indeed, it never hap- 
pens that a horse who is not connected more or less 
closely with the equine aristocracy becomes distin- 
guished as a trotter. There is a popular superstition 
that Flora Temple, Dexter, and other celebrated 
animals, were of obscure birth, and began life in 
humble situations; but this, as I shall presently 
show, is not the case. Dutchman,! to be sure, an 
old-time trotter of great courage and bottom, was 
first used in a string team at Philadelphia to haul 
brick; but he was a horse of good breeding. He 
was a bay gelding, fifteen hands three inches high, 
very powerfully made, bony and strong, with a plain 
but resolute face, and a fine neck and head. Dutch- 
man’s time for three miles, namely, 7.41, remained 
the best on record from the year when it was made, 
1839, till 1872, when Huntress,? a beautiful bay mare, 
reduced it to 7.214. 
There is another reason why every American ought 
to take an interest in the trotter. Trotting, like 
base-ball, is, as its votaries often remark, a uational 
sport, — national in the sense not only that it is 
popular among us, but that it was created by us; and 
consequently anybody in the United States who fails 
to take an interest in it is so far forth out of touch 
with his countrymen. There is something lacking in 
him, — some obscure though doubtless valuable trait, 
which, if he possessed it, would certainly make him 
interesting in other directions, but which is most 
conspicuously revealed in a fondness for the track. 
1 Dutchman was by a grandson of Messenger; and his dam is 
said to have been by a son of Messenger. 
2 By Volunteer. Her dam was a Star mare. See page 69. 
