122 THE HORSE IN AMERICA 



finally became known as Bishop's Hamiltonian. 

 In his effort to borrow the name, Rysdyk, being 

 weak in his orthography, called his horse Rys- 

 dyk's Hambletonian. And so he lives in history — 

 false in his pedigree as in his name. The public 

 of that day believed this horse to be a son of 

 Bishop's Hamiltonian, and for the sake of the 

 Messenger blood he was served to the best mares 

 in Orange County, and Orange County was rich 

 in the Arab and Barb blood of the daughters and 

 granddaughters of that great and unbeatable 

 trotting horse, Andrew Jackson. No stallion ever 

 had a better chance, and it was almost impossible 

 that there should not have been good horses 

 among his get. And there were. But the bad blood 

 of his ancestry, sire and grandsire being worth- 

 less degenerates, together with the utterly unmix- 

 able Conestoga blood in his grandam, have 

 been continually cropping out in his progeny — 

 for faults more readily reappear than perfections 

 — until now, when it must be acknowledged that 

 the boasted horse type of w'hich he is said to be 

 the founder is no type at all. 



When the pedigree manipulators were manu- 



