Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1894-10-26
The HACkNEYS.


Horse" published by permission IN the
Rider and Driver of New York, we con-
slider it PROVEN that the original Shales,
from which the modern English trotting
horse is largely descended, was got by
Blaze, son of Flying Childers, by the
barley Arabian, his dam called a "strong
common-bred mare. His only noted
son. Scots Shales, it seems, was adver-
tised in l772 at Long sutton, in Lincoln
shire, by Mr.. jenkins, when it was stat
ed that his dam was well-bred Hunter
These horses and very many of their get
were very famous trottCrs in their day,
and it is evident thatthe large amount of
speed which they showed at this gait
was due to the thoroughbred or Arabian
blood that came in through the sire. 1t
is also evident that the trOttlng action
came from the dams.
As is well known, the American horse,
Imported Messenger, was got by Mann
brine, son of Engineer, by Sampson, son
of Blaze. son of the same Blaze as above.
gree was a horse of uncommonly large
breadth and size. for a thoroughbred.
That he was by Blaze has never been
questioned, and his dam was advertised
as the thoroughbred daughter of Hip,
but this pedigree of the dam has always
been very seriously questioned, and, in
deed, was directly impeached by John
Lawrence, one of the most prominent
English writer's of his day on the horse,
who states that the groom who bred the
dam of Sampson to Blaze informed him
that the breeding of the mare was un-
known, but that she appeared about
three-parts bred. Lawrence was evil
IDENTIFY a conscientious writer, although
not altogether accurate; but when the
conformation of Sampson was consider
ed, that was so entirely different from
the thoroughbred, and when it is also
considered that both he and Mambrino
and Messenger, descended from him, had
the aptitude to trot themselves and pro-
duce it with so much uniformity in their
get, it is reasonable to think that the
information received by Mr. Lawrence
was correct and that Sampson has a
much larger amount of the English pie
bian or trotting blood than most of the
English stations that were called thor
oughbreds. AS we had occasion to
state in The Morgan Horse there
is more or less pleban or unknown blood
in large share, if not nearly all, of the
English thoroughbreds. But this was
generally less rather than more; while
in the case of Sampson it was more in
stead of less.
1t follows that the pedigree of the
dam of Sampson as given in the English
stud books was apparently about as ac-
curate as that of the dam of George
Wilkes and that of IA thousand and one
other pedigrees as given in the "Year
Books" and other volumes of the Ameri-
can rrotting Register ASSOCIATION, that
is, it was entirely false.
1t should also be mentioned that The
second dam of Blaze was roam mare of
unknown breeding, and that the dam of
Gray Grantham, that got the dam of
Blaze, was also of unknown breeding,
which made one-quarter of the blood of
Blaze unknown, and very probably pie
ban, that is, either trotting or ambling
blood:
HIS CLAIMS TO RECOGNITION AS A ROAD
STER AS BASED ON BREEDING AND
PERFORMANCES.
Published by permis sion OF M. Henry f.
Euren, secretary English Hackney society
THE DISTINCTIVE NAME.
The oldest surviving appellatlon for
the active riding horse in England APP
pears to be that of nag, derived from the
Anglo-SaXOn hnegan, to neigh. When
the Normans became masters they in
trOduced their own more familiar term
Haquenee, or Hacquenee, the French
word derived from the Latin equus.
This name had been fully adopted
into the English tongue in the year
1903. Robert Mannynge, more COM
monty known as Robert ID. Brunne,
from his being a monk at Bourne, in
Lincolnshire, who wrote In that year,
uses it in the line "Ilk on his hakneye."
In "'The Vision of Piers Plowman, "
written about the year 1850, the word
is thus used: SAC hakeneves hadde
thei none, bote hakeneyes to hyre. "
Chaucer, who, it is believed. lived for a
time in Norfolk, spells the word in two
fOrms-as hakeney and hackney. All
these old writers used it in the sense of
a riding horse for general purposes as
distinct from the war horse. Both nag
and Hackney continue to be used as
synonymous terms to this day. POSI-
bly,, the name trotter, descriptive of the
characteristic gait of such horse, had
been used in the vulgar tongue long be-
fore we find record of 1t, for the action
is most accurately described by writer
on Eng fish customs as early as the year
1l70. The earliest use of the word is,
however, found in one of the celebrated
Pastor letters. Margaret PASTOR. writ
ing TO her husband, Sir John PASTOR,
somewhere about the year l4G5, from
their home "at EIeylesdOn," near Nor
witch, has this "Item: there he bought
for you three horses at Saint Faiths fair,
and all be trotters, right far horses,
God save them. and they be well