ROAD HORSES. The possession of wealth in the Northern States, both East and West, almost invariably shows itself in the desire to possess horses for driving single or double, and that may combine handsome form, style and docility, with a high and continued rate of speed. The wants of business men require horses posses sing all these characteristics, but in a lesser degree; still another class, the sons of well-to do farmers, and those of other producing classes, require horses that will be either above or below the business man's horse, according to the state of their respective purses. This has created a demand for horses sufficiently well bred to unite speed, stoutness and style, and many intelligent farmers have of late years turned their efforts, and with profit, to the breeding of such horses; these are now called road horses, in contradis tinction to the trotting horse, which, if he can go fast enough, is a fortune to his pos sessor, even without the added qualification of style and beauty of form. The roadster, like the trotting horse, is essentially an American invention. American horsemen have taken the initiative in the breeding of these horses; and in no other country in the world will be found either roadsters or trotters capable of doing what these American bred horses will .do, either on the trotting course, the road, or on the pleasure drives of our parks. The passion for driving upon the road is undoubtedly one of the means through which our trotting horses were developed, and it seems more than probable that thus were developed some of the best traits that have descended to many of the best trotting horses. Thus a horse of the style of Edward Everett, (see cut), combined with bottom and speed, would be far preferable to a faster horse, but not so handsome. The faculty of fast and natural trotting has been called the trotting instinct. To our mind the trotting instinct is more due to generations of horses, trained to trotting, and which through heredity becomes a fixed characteristic, than anything else. This, with high breeding, careful training, and a cool temper, both in horse and horseman is what has produced the wonderful speed and endurance, both in the American trotting horse and in the American roadster. For light driving, the des cendants of Hill's Black-hawk, and many others of the 1VIorgans, may be regarded as almost the perfection of this class of horses. Where greater range of stoutness, and faster work is required, we must look to the descendants of 1VIessenger, Bellfounder, Duroc, etc. Hamble tonian, for instance, stands for all that is excellent as a trotter (See Trotting Horses), but his head, if perpetuated in a descendant, would be against him as a stylish road horse. In relation to breed ing trotters from roadsters, or rather the develop ment of the trotting stock of our country, 1VIr. Helm, a practical horse breeder, and author of American Roadsters and Trotting Horses says: It is important to note the fact that, while we recognize the blood of Messenger as the great trotting blood of our country; this trotting quality has come to us mainly, if not altogether, from the sons and daughters of Messenger that were either part bred or kept and bred from in localities where the horse was used as a road ster; and that, of his thoroughbred sons and daughters used for racing purposes, for which they were also distinguished, a much smaller percentage of trotting qualities has been dissem inated. Carrying out ,the supposed teachings of experience in this same matter, it is also claimed that to produce great trotters with certainty and success, the parents must both be trained and developed in the way that our great trotters are trained, and that as a sequence of this doctrine such animals alone can be relied upon for the highest degree of success as breeding animals. Whether it is true that this high degree of devel opment in sire and dam is beneficial or can be relied on with increased confidence, is a matter of uncertainty, and also one of some difficulty to determine with any degree of satisfaction. Whether the process of training and fitting which we call the grand preparation for the great struggles of the race-course, do tend to give the nervous and physical organism the same degree of fixed character and constitute such traits into the permanent elements of the animal nature and being as the regular and con stant use as a roadster and fast trotter in daily road work, we can hardly decide. Theory and practice might not agree—the doctrine started with, may not correspond to the results of expe rience. There may be many reasons why a fair test can not be expected. It takes so many years to develop the trotters, and bring them to the highest degree of excellence, that before they are ready to be transferred from the department of performance to that of reproduc tion, their age unfits them for the greatest excel lence in the latter. Thus far but a small num
ber of great trotters have produced stallions that approach the front rank. Princess enjoyed a short career on the trotting turf after several years use as a roadster, in both of which depart ments she was distinguished, and then produced the stallion Happy 1VIedium, who undoubtedly displays much of the trotting quality for which she was noted. Sally Miller, the dam of Long Island Black Hawk, was a trotter and road mare of distinction in her day, her claims to that rank being founded both in her performances at one and two-mile heats, and in her being either a granddaughter or a g-reat-granddaughter of Messenger. Flora Temple has also left a son that has some claims to trotting excellence, but is yet not known to rank as a distinguished stallion. Lady Thorn has left a son yet too young to settle the question whether her high degree of perfection as a trotter was in her favor as the dam of a great stallion, and the same observation will apply to the son of Lucy, her disting-uished companion and old-time compet itor. It is certainly true that the renown of Lady Thorn as a trotter, and her brother Mam brino Patchen as the sire of trotters, in large part originated in the fact that their dam was a highly bred and fully developed road raare, in constant service and of great reputed excellence. Amazonia; the dam of Abdallah, was the most noted road raare of her day; bred from the most noted road stock, but without any of the so-called development in any way, except hard and con stant use on the road, where she had no peer. In her blood constituents, and in her acquired and steadily maintained excellence, she was the worthy maternity of the greatest trotting family of our country, but not less distinguished, in each of the above respects, was the Charles Kent mare, the dam of Hambletonian. She was deeply in-bred in the best trotting blood—herself a daughter of one of the best natural trotters our countiy theu had, and for many years was as much famed on the road as the distinguished dam of Abdallah. From such parentage it is no strange phenomenon, in breeding, that there came the founder or progenitor of a trotting race or family the greatest the world has yet seen. The dam of Alexander's Abdallah, the most suc cessful of the sons of Hambletonian, for his short existence, was a developed road mare, but not entitled to be classed as anything beyond. So was the granddam of Volunteer, the dam of George Wilkes, the dam of Ericsson and grand dam of Clark Chief, the dam of Trustee, who trotted the twenty-mile race, and the dam and granddam of Knickerbocker. The dam of Gov. Sprague, in addition to the qualities of a fast road-mare fully developed, had the additional element of being a daughter of Hambletonian. The dam of Manabrino Chief, by her good qual ities as a roadster, first proved herself to be worthy to produce so great a stallion, and in later years, by the qualities of her descendants, also. fully established her claim to the double distinction of possessing as good blood as was on the calendar. From her Abdallah would have produced the peer of Hambletonian, and, perhaps, a more generally successful stallion. The dams of Aberdeen, Cuyler, Middletown Marabrino Star,.Argonaut, and many other dis: tinguished stallions, came from superior road mares—the first on the above list, from a trotter of considerable distinction. It is rare indeed that a truly great road-mare of good breeding has failed, when bred to a good sire, to produce something worthy of her own excellence, and still more rare, that a really great stallion can be shown whose dam was an unused and idle mare, whose blood qualities had never been called into exercise and proved by actual use and the capacity for hard work. Many mares in the breeding farms of this country have no other claim to superiority than a pedigree showing the blood of distinguished families That many such fail may be owing to the fact that they never wore a collar or performed a day's work in their lives. It might be that many of these longaledigree mares would acquire the harmony -rirnerve organism and blood traits which they seem to lack, if they were put into actual service .on, the road for a long and uninterrupted period. Nothing else, perhaps, would call out the dor mant qualities of nerve and muscle which they carry hidden and unseen. It seems to be a law of animal existence, not confined to the human race, that without labor there is no great excel lence, and that it is the trials and contests of life that call out and develop the capabilities of a race. The reader vvill find elegant photo-illus trations of Lakeland Abdallah, and also of Edward Everett. These horses will serve as object lessons of first-class horses, either for the course or the road.