eration has furnished the most perfect specimens.

Messenger lived to be twenty-eight years old. For fifteen years he was owned in the neighborhood of New York, and was held in such estimation that he probably left a more numerous family than any horse that has ever lived. So great has been the impress of his wonderful stamina and splendid form upon the horses of America, that those best acquainted with the subject do not hesitate to estimate his value to the country at one hundred millions of dollars.

Of the other horses that have founded lines of trotters, Justin Morgan deserves to be mentioned first. He was foaled in 1793 at Springfield, Massachusetts, and when two years old was taken to Vermont. His sire was True Briton, a fine horse ridden by General Delancey in the Revolutionary War.

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Justin Morgan is described as "low, compact, powerful horse, with a proud step, and good lively action." These qualities he communicated to his descendants, who are smooth, easy travellers, and possessed of indomitable perseverance. Fox, one of his colts, was driven one hundred and seventyfive miles on the road within twentyfour hours. The excellence of the stock of New England is due to this horse and to Hambletonian, a son of Messenger.

The Bashaws are descended from two imported Arabian horses. The first, known as Bashaw, was bred by the Emperor of Morocco, by whom he was presented to the Dey of Algiers, and finally, through the Swedish Consul, found his way to this country about the year 1768.

Grand Bashaw was imported from Tripoli in 1820. Andrew Jackson, Kemble Jackson, Long Island Black Hawk, Henry Clay, Lantern, and George M. Patchen are of his descendants, although all of them are more or less derived from Messenger. The Bashaws are characterized by fine size, handsome head and neck, full mane and

tail, and a certain pride and magnificence of style.

The trotting horse Bellfounder was imported from England in 1823. He was a horse of great substance, of remarkable spirit, and his career in England was marked by splendid achievements. At three years old he trotted two miles in six minutes; and when four years old, ten miles in thirty minutes. Afterwards he trotted over the Norfolk Course, seventeen and one half miles, within an hour, winning a purse of five hundred guineas. He gave muscle and sinew to his progeny, and a Bellfounder cross appears in the pedigrees of many fine trotting horses.

There remain to be mentioned imported Trustee, and Sir Henry; Duroc, by thorough-bred Diomed; Glencoe, by Sultan; and the French horses Pilot and Royal George. These last horses were only in part of the original Norman stock; but they had enough of the blood to show it in their form, in the toughness of their constitution, and in their bold trotting action.

From the horses that have been here enumerated all the trotting horses and most of the road horses in the United States have come. In the case of many trotting horses a pedigree cannot be made out; but whenever one is fully ascertained, it invariably establishes a connection with one or the other of them. An excellent authority claims that no great trotter has been produced whose pedigree, when traced for four generations, does not show a connection with imported Messenger.

This record proves the immense influence of a few good horses upon the stock of a nation, and attests also the superior qualities of the English racer. All the horses here mentioned are of the Arabian and English thorough-bred stock, except the French horses, and even they are known to have had a strong infusion of the blood. From the vast hordes of wild horses which roamed over the plains of Texas, Mexico, and South America, not a single animal equal in size, speed, and enduring power to these English horses

and their direct descendants has ever been bred.

The first public trotting race in America, of which there is any record, took place in the year 1818. There had been for many years previous a growing taste for driving the trotting horse, and racing, or running, had been popular from the first settlement of the country; but it was not until that comparatively recent date that the interest in trotting culminated in a public exhibition of it.

The love of the horse is a part of the birthright of Americans, as the offspring of a people who for centuries have been devoted to the sports of the turf, and whose patriotism and pride have co-operated with their love of pleasure in the cultivation and improvement of a national stock. As early as the twelfth century a regular race-course was established in London; this being none other than Smithfield. Fitzstephen, who lived at that period, gives the following quaint account of the contests between the palfreys of the day: "When a race is to be run by horses which in their kind are strong and fleet, a shout is raised, and common horses are ordered to withdraw from without the way. Two jockeys, then, or sometimes three, as the match may be made, prepare themselves for the contest, such as are used to ride, and know how to manage their horses with judgment; the grand point being to prevent a competitor from getting before them. The horses on their part are not without emulation. They tremble, and are impatient, and continually in motion. At last, the signal once given, they hurry along with unremitting velocity; the jockeys, inspired with the thoughts of applause and the hopes of victory, clapping spurs to their willing steeds, brandishing their whips, and cheering them with their cries." Youatt adds, that this description, with the exception of the cries, might form part of the record of a modern race at Epsom, in the columns of a morning paper, so national is the English sport of horse-racing, and so unchanged are

English horse and turf is full of interest. Such was the importance that Edward III. attached to good stock, that he gave a thousand marks for fifty Spanish horses, negotiating at the same time with the kings of France and Spain for their safe passage by land. The Stuarts imported many fine horses from the East, and laid the basis of the modern thorough-bred stock. Since their time it has been considered obligatory upon royalty to encourage breeding and racing, and even Parliament adjourns in honor of the Derby. As a recent writer in an English magazine says: "It is an undoubted necessity that Englishmen should have a national pastime, capable of affording amusement to all classes, enacted in the open air, devoid of all taint of cruelty, and conducted, as far as possible, with the rules of fair play. That want racing supplies; and when the national amusements of other times and peoples are reviewed, it will be found a difficult task to dispute, successfully, the claim, that the English turf is the noblest pastime in which any nation, ancient or modern, has ever indulged."

The love of the national sport was strongly implanted in the breasts of those Englishmen who settled Virginia and other southern and southwestern portions of the United States. They imported the best English horses, and the time early came when every planter kept his stud. As the country was sparsely settled, and wagon-roads uncut, the horse and saddle furnished the principal means of communication with neighbors and towns, and to be well mounted became one of the distinguishing marks of social position. The stage-coach came afterward, and the railroad; and travelling on horseback gradually ceased, but not until the taste for using the horse under the saddle had become thoroughly established, and yearly meetings for racing in the English style had become popular.

Passing over Colonial times, and the period immediately following the Revo

lution, we come upon the period when racing reached the highest point of popularity. For a period of over twenty-five years every city and considerable town, from New York to Florida, from Cairo to Balize, and all through the valley of the Mississippi, had biennial meetings, in which the most distinguished men of the time took part. The leading politicians of the South were foremost in patronizing the turf. The efforts of General Jackson to improve the stock of Kentucky, and his fondness for racing, are fully set forth in his biography by Mr. Parton. The names of Sir Henry, American Eclipse, Ariel, Black Maria, Gray Eagle, Boston, and Fashion will render this period in American turf-annals forever illustrious.

But racing had its origin in the Southern States. Virginia and Kentucky were the great nurseries of the running horse. The principal race-courses were near Southern capitals; and although, in the great race on Union Course, Long Island, in 1823, between Sir Henry and American Eclipse, the North was successful, in the main the greatest success in breeding running horses, as well as the greatest popularity of the sport, was at the South.

If the English love of the horse was shared by the Puritan settlers of New England at all, it did not show itself in patronage of the turf. On the contrary, they regarded racing and all its accompaniments with peculiar aversion. Their creed and lives, indeed their very expatriation formed a protest against the habits and principles of those of their countrymen at home with whom the maintenance of the turf was the first object of life. Nor was the exhilarating ride in the saddle in harmony with the Puritan temper. It was tainted with incitements whose direct tendency was the race-course. Their settlements covered a narrower field, and consequently there was not the same demand for the horse for use in travelling as at the South. It was as an assistant in the labors of agriculture that they found him principally serviceable. His de

corous use before the rude vehicles which carried their families to meeting was the nearest approach which they made to modern pleasure - driving. Harnessed before their "one-horse shays," a horse possessing the speed of Flora Temple or Dexter would be brought down to an orthodox amble. Thus it came that driving the horse before vehicles of varying degrees of clumsiness generally prevailed in New England; whence it has gradually spread over the country, displacing the use of the horse under the saddle, and furnishing another evidence of the complete predominance of Puritan influence in the country. The habit of driving led naturally to the cultivation of trotting; that gait being the easiest for the horse in harness, and the most unobtrusive and agreeable to the driver.

There exists but a scanty record of the early trotting horses and their achievements. The first sporting-paper published in America, “The Turf Register," was first issued September 1, 1829. This monthly journal was almost entirely devoted to the thoroughbred running horse and racing; and, during the first two or three years of its existence, trotting was barely mentioned in its pages. As has been stated, the first public trotting race took place in 1818. In that year the horse Boston Blue trotted at Boston, in a match against time, a mile within three minutes (the exact time is unknown), which was reckoned a very great performance. In 1824, Albany Pony trotted a mile on the Jamaica turnpike in 2 m. 40 s., which shows a considerable advance in speed in the six years which had intervened.

The performances of Top Gallant were so extraordinary, and he was in every respect such a superior horse, that a more complete record of him has been handed down than of any of the old-time trotters. He was foaled in 1808, but trotted his principal races after he was twenty years old. Hiram Woodruff, who rode him at his exercise, thus describes him: "Top Gallant was a dark bay, fifteen hands,

three inches high; plain, and rawboned; but with rather a fine head and neck, and an eye expressive of much courage. His spirit was very high, and his bottom was of the finest and toughest quality." In 1828, in a fourmile race against Whalebone over the Hunting Park Course, Philadelphia, he trotted four heats of four miles each, in 11 m. 16 s., II m. 6 s., 11 m. 17 s., 12 m. 15 s., the whole sixteen miles in 45 m. 44 s. In 1830, when twenty-two years old, he trotted twelve miles over the same course in 38 minutes; and in 1831, on the same ground, two miles in 5 m. 19s.

A correspondent of the "English Sporting Magazine," writing of the trotting horses at the Hunting Park Course in 1829, mentions Top Gallant first, as follows:

"Top Gallant, by Hambletonian, he by Messenger, trotted twelve miles in harness in 38 minutes; and three miles, under saddle, in 8 m. 31 s. He is now nineteen years old, and can trot a mile with one hundred and fifty pounds in 2 m. 45 s.

"Betsey Baker, by Mambrino, he by Messenger, beat Top Gallant three miles, under saddle, carrying one hundred and fifty pounds, in 8 m. 16 s. This mare, when sound, could trot twenty miles within the hour.

"Trouble, by Hambletonian, a horse of good bottom, trotted two miles in 5 m. 25 s.

"Sir Peter, by Hambletonian, trotted three miles in harness in 8m. 16s.

"Whalebone, by Hambletonian, trotted three miles in 8 m. 18 s. These two, Sir Peter and Whalebone, can be matched either against Rattler or Tom Thumb, now in England, for any

amount."

(Tom Thumb trotted, in England, 16.5 miles, in harness, in 56 m. 45 s., and 100 miles in 9 h. 30 m.)

"Screwdriver, by Mount Holly, he by Messenger, in a race with Betsey Baker, trotted two three-mile heats in 8 m. 2 s., and 8 m. 10s."

* A heat is one continuous effort, either in running or trotting.

This record of performances would be creditable to the trotting horse in any year of his history. It illustrates the general character of all the trotting races of the early time. They were as much a test of endurance as of speed, and were seldom of less than two, and frequently of three and four miles. Races were trotted in which the endurance of horses was taxed to the uttermost, and the tasks most commonly imposed would render completely worthless one half of the trotting horses of the present day. Speed has been cultivated to the neglect of bottom, and what has been gained in swiftness has been lost in staying power.

In this respect, the course of trotting in America is analogous to that of racing in England. The English racers of half a century ago partook of the characteristic excellence of the Oriental horses, from whom they were derived, — which was that, in addition to their speed, they possessed extraordinary powers of endurance. Such horses as Bay Middleton, Glencoe, Mameluke, The Baron, Pyrrhus the First, Blair Athol, Wild Dayrell, Lanercost, and Harkaway, and the mares Catherina, Beeswing, and Alice Hawthorn, are not now found upon the English turf, and it is doubtful if ever they will be found there again. An English writer on the present condition of the turf says: "There is not a six-year-old now in training in England to whom any of these four (Lanercost, Harkaway, Beeswing, and Alice Hawthorn) could not at the same age have given a stone and a beating over the Beacon Course."

The "Turf Register" of March, 1834, copies from a Philadelphia paper the following comments on a race which took place at Trenton, N. J., in which the horse Edwin Forrest trotted a mile in 2 m. 36s., and Columbus, in 2 m. 37 s. : "The improvement of the trotting horse is engaging the attention of some of the best sporting characters in the country. We believe our State boasts of the best trotters in the Union. New It York is nearly as good as our own.