156 THE HORSE 



because any account of American horses would be 

 incomplete without it and partly for the benefit of 

 such of my readers as do not already know it. It 

 is worthy of thoughtful examination and shows 

 pretty clearly where the speed-producing power 

 came from. The horse himself certainly could not 

 be called handsome, nor was he specially speedy 

 ' — 2:40 or 2:45 being probably about his gait. 

 But he was a horse of great vitality and stamina, 

 and illustrates, as few stallions do, the truism that 

 the value of a stock-horse lies not in his own per- 

 formances but in those of his sons and daughters. 



There were many intermediate steps to be taken, 

 however, between the founding of this family and 

 the production of the two-minute trotter. 



There are two ways by which the prepotency 

 of a new breed can be rendered greater and its 

 type more firmly fixed; first, by inbreeding; sec- 

 ond, by an occasional fresh admixture of that 

 pure strain of blood which forms its most im- 

 portant component part. After the establish- 

 ment of the Hambletonian family the first method 

 was followed with renewed zeal and with fine re- 

 sults. Many horsemen, pondering on the blood- 

 lines of the great sire, now began to question 

 whether it might not be wise to go back to the 

 fountainhead and add to the blood of Messenger a 

 little more of the thoroughbred strain. 



