Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-05-11
Mr.. HAMLIN ANSWERS HIS CRIT
ICS,
BUFFALO, April 16, 1888.

first offered to trot, over any good track,
equally accessible to challenged and |
challenger, four of the get of Mambrino
King, foaled in 1885, bred. raised, devel- |
oped and owned at Village Farm, against
any four of the same age, bred, raised,
developed and owned by the owner of any
stallion having record of 2 :22 and bet
ter, the said four to have been sired after
the stallion had obtained his fastest re-
cord. There has been any quantity of
wind, but no one has stepped to the front
with an acceptance of the challenge, al
though the grass is now turning green
in the fields. have not run from the Of
fer or lodged in any way, and still stand
ready to do as | said | would do. have
simply declined to withdraw the original
challenge and accept counter PROPOSE
tons. Gen. Tracy, who somewhat iash-
ly declared in the early part of the con-
troversy that he would not as a rule,
breed to stallion which had not shown
an ability to trot in 2:20, has had hard
work to square himself with established
facts, and his last effort was a labored
one. The proprietor of Marshland is a
logician, and l frankly confess that
know of no one interested in breeding
who could so well write up his side, still
it seems to me that the general might
with much less work have produced a
far better argument on the other side.
Had he given as much thought to a legal
question as he has to this breeding topic,
his fee, | am sure, would not have been
short of 81 900. | classed, it will be re-
membered, among undeveloped stations
founders of trotting families like Ham,
bletonian, Mambrino Chief, Gen. Knox,
Black Hawk, Almont, Golddust, Bashaw
and MambrinO Patchen; sres of 2 20
producing rank such as Aberdeen, Bel
mont, Edward Everett, Louis Napoleon,
Messenger Duroc, Kentucky Prince, Mas
terlode, Strathmore, Red Wilkes and
Waikiki Chief; transmitters of 2:l4 re-
cords like Harold, Dictator, Volunteer,
Conklin's Abdallah, Happy Medium,
Alexander's Abdallah and Princeps, and
tilio SluSSihSdtlOH uuslldhtl, uOl
having been assailed with anything more
dangerous than a bubble. The list is
formidable and the theory that | uphold
rests upon foundation of adamant.
do not propose to follow Gen. Tracy's ex-
ample and waste time on supposltion.
The issue turns not on what might have
been, but what has been and is. We
know that the majority of successful stall
lions were not fully developed in harness,
were not oyerworked for the sake of a
fast record, and contend that the con-
clusion logically follows that their sue
cess was in a large measure due to the
fact that their vital force was not sapped
or impaired by track campaigns. Their
ability for reproducing speed was not
weakened by much scraping, scoring and
severe physical eXertion. The exposition
of natures laws made by Gen. Tracy has
a chestnut flavor. 1t is rehash of OAR
win, who had given no study to the prin-
ciple governing action in the American
trotter Mr.. Wallace has been repeating
the dogma for years that trotting, like
pointing, is purely a matter of instinct
that if you want fast trotter you must
breed fast trotter to a fast trotter, and
if you want fast runner you must breed
a fast runner to fast runner. Gov.
Stanford has demonstrated at Palo Alto
that you can breed a runner of the right
conformation and temperament to a trot-
ter and get a trotter with a high degree
of certainty. In the sum of inherited hab-
its there are two kinds of action, but the
blending is such that one helps the other.
The intense stride of the trotter is length
ened and the speed propOrtionately in
creased. General Tracy will have to
make his law of heredity little more
elastic. When he appeals to history he
is met with the fact that the fastest per-
formers are not from record-crowned in
dviduals. The stations through which
the lines were transmitted were not de-
veloped-did not have the trotting have
habit intensified by use, by severe tests
on the track will start with Messenger,
the thoroughbred runner. He got Mann
brine, thoroughbred he got Abdalah,
he Hambletonian, he Harold and he Maud
S., = :Ss, the fastest and gamest trotter to
date. Not one of the male ancestors of
the queen was ever developed in harness
to record. Now take the female line of
the stallions-Amazonia, Charles Kent
mare, Enchantress-all undeveloped.
The dam of Maud S. herself was by Pilot,
Jr.. who has no record, and her dam was
by Boston, runner. From the begin
ming to the end no habit of harness action
was intensified by use on the track, no
stallion or dam was campaigned, much
less trained to a record of 2 ID and better,
and yet the outcome is the fastest trotter
that the world has seen. Probably it
was good thing that the trotting habit
was not strengthened and intensified by