226 LIFE u'lTH 'J'HE TROTTEKS. 



■early on the day of tlie sale, but when Kentucky Prince was 

 led out the first bid on him was $5,000, and in a little while 

 he was struck off at $10,000. Mr. Thomas took one good 

 look at the horse and went back to Kentucky, and it was a 

 year later that he first mentioned the circumstance. 



That Kentucky Prince must have impressed his present 

 ■owner, Mr. Chas. Backman, of Stony Ford, N. Y., in the same 

 manner that he did Colonel West is shown by the fact that 

 when the stallion was put up at auction sale in New York 

 several years ago, and at a time when the depression in all 

 values had affected the horse market to a marked degree, 

 Mr. Backman was present and paid $10,000 for him, fully 

 helieving there was a great future for the son of Clark Chief. 

 At this time the premier stallion of Mr. Backman' s farm 

 was Messenger Duroc, a horse of marked success as the sire 

 of trotters, and in addition to him Mr. Backman had numer- 

 ous sons of Rysdyk' s Hambletonian, and a band of brood 

 mares of the American Star, Mambrino Chief and other 

 fashionable families, whose reputation was known in all 

 parts of the country. It is under Mr. Backman' s manage- 

 ment that Kentucky Prince has attained a foremost place 

 among the stallions of America, and with the exception of 

 ^lectioiueer there is no stallion to-day who so completely 

 fills the public mind. In addition to the 2:12 of Guy last 

 season, Kentucky Prince had another notable representa- 

 tive on the turf in the black gelding Spofford, that won the 

 $10,000 stake at Hartford, beating a large field of the best 

 horses, and making a record of 2:18f. Spofford is faster 

 than his record shows, as I have seen him go half a mile in 

 a race better than 1:06 and timed him a mile in 2:16f . Like 

 Woodburn, the farm at Stony Ford, of which Mr. Back- 

 man has long been the owner, has an important effect 

 on the trotting interests of this country. Animals bred 

 there are representative ones, the strains of blood from 

 -which they come are those that have been tested in the 

 fire of the grand circuit races, and they have not been 

 iound wanting. Green Mountain Maid is, in the opinion of 



