Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-05-11

praise of him as ''game campaigner."
far and away the best of the get of Bel
mont. But when "Vermont" filings
Wedgewood at his neighbors with the
whitening war cries-"As game as Bel
mont" GAS faint-hearted as Lam
bert !'-it certainly startles us into pry-
ing into the grounds of the indictment.
How greatly, when you get at the facts,
does this gamest of the game Belmonts
overshadow Gomez, son of the sire of the
faint-hearted Lamberts? Wedgewood's
record is 2:19; Comee's 2:194. Wedge
wood trotted IS races, of which he won
Is and lost 80. Gomez trotted 80 races,
of which he won 20 and lost 81. Wedge
wood won sc heats in 2 80 or better.
Gomez won II heats in 2 80 or better.
The records are practically the same, be-
ing one-fourth second in favor of Wedge
wood. But in the number of races trot-
ted the "faint-hearted Lambert excels
the ''game Belmont by five; in number
of races won, by eight, being A per
cent; in number of heats in 80 or bet
ter, by 10, about ~ per cent. Both were
five years on the turf, Wedgewood going
on i'm 1877, when Gomez came off, there
by giving the son of Belmont the advan-
tage of the better tracks, improved sui
kies and new speed appliances of the la
ter era, which are generally conceded to
have been material aid in making fast
record. If these facts are not enough to
relieve the son of Lambert from the
charge of faint-heartedness, the state
ment of Mr.. James Golden may be added,
who has repeatedly said that Gomez was
one of the most plucky horses that he
ever drove, and could trot close to 2:l6.
The cry of faint-heart is very easy to
raise, but facts are stubborn things.
Now" says "Vermont" "when we of
the Green Mountain State get good, stout
blood, like the Wilkes, Dictator or Bel
mont, then we will be famed as a race
horse producing State, but not till then"
This is indeed discouraging. We have an
abundance of the blood that produced
Gomez, for his dam was an inbred Nor
gan by a son of Jackson's Flying Cloud
by Vermont Black Hawk, and out of a
Morgan mare, while the stout blood he
mentions is foreign to us, and our breed
ers must go out and buy the animals
blessed with 1t at inordinate prices, I'M
less haply they may find it in the de-
scendants of the ID sons of Hambetonian
that have done stud service in this State,
whose combined efforts have swelled the
2 80 list by three rather feeble perform
ers. If they could find it among these
latter they could doubtless afford to pur-
chase, as the animals bearing it are not
held at extravaganza prices. But hOwev-
err and wherever obtained, if the results
of breeding upon it produced stock nc
more superior to our native stock in
stoutness than Wedgewood was to Gomez
the success of the venture would not be
startling. Another difficulty arises. The
dams of four out of the five twenty-race
winners by Lambert are Morgan mares,
and the other is a Columbus. The rec,
ords do not show that any one of the trio
so warmly recommended for stoutness
wilkes, Dictator and Belmont) eyer got
the dam of a twenty-race winner. So, if
it be true. as ''Vermont" has sagaciously
observed, that ''arguments are only sus-
tanned by facts" it is difficult to see what
may be the foundation of this particular
argument. On the whole, the argument
for stoutness, as used by vermont,
would seem to be a boomerang.
The facts herein stated are derived from
Mr.. Chester's work, above named. and
the works of John II. Wallace, and are
complete to the close of 1856, the supple
ments for 1857 being not yet out.