Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1906-05-25
HORSE DEPARTMENT.
ST RANGER
Have We improved the Trotter in
a Extre m eIPowers or Only in the
Average7


q Extre m eIPowers or onIyin the
Average7
Editor American Horse BREEDER
Colonel Kuser j2:11D, the stallion by
Stranger. dam Inez, by Jay Gould, that
has out.campaigned everything on the
European trotting turf this year, seems
to have much of the quality of his pater-
nal grandam, Goldsmith Maid (2:14),
As campaigner the "Maid" surpassed
everything in trotting form that ever
appeared before or since her day, no
other trotter having ever contested so
many races. In eleven years on the
turf she won 119 races and trotted many
others. She improved from year to
year. and took her record of 2:14 (then
the fastest in the world. when II years
old, and repeated it in her twentieth
year. All her work was, of course, done
in the old high-wheel sulky. When
closely pinched she would sometimes
tire little at the end of very fast
mile, but would never cease to try, tired
though she was. But whoever imagined
because she finished tired that she would
not be lin it, the next heat missed his
guess. The way in which she would
blow out after firing heat, and score
fresh as daisy for the next one, and
trot again into the same notch that.had
no parallel until there came change in
sulkies.
Since the improved sulky has nr-
peared, though horses trot faster than
they did to the old sulky, for some rea-
son they can repeat their heats more
frequently without a falling off in time
than was possible with the old rig. Now
we frequently see races of several heats
in which the time of the latter heats are
about as fast as the earlier ones. The
difference must be attributed to the
sulkies. While, at the average, our
present horses are higher bred and con
sequently gamer than the average OF
years past, yet there was class of high
bred ones years ago, of which Goldsmith
Maid was evidently a representative,
that was just as game as any to-day.
Not only did she recuperate between
heats, but her ability after a desperate
race TO meet her opponents in even
higher form week later was something
to be wondered at. When in 1876
Smuggler beat her at Cleveland in the
Grand Circuit meeting in the greatest
race that had ever been trotted, the
amazemeni and excitement all over the
country were intense. week later at
Buffalo a mass of people passed through
the gates TO see them come together
again. Goldsmith Maid had only been
hardened into even higher form by the
Cleveland race, while Smuggler, iron
horse though he was, had refrigerated
under the strain, and she beat him with
out distress.
Her son, Stranger, was never trained
but seems to transmit her Characters
tics TO his progeny. They are pure
trotters, and even from pacing mares
he is said never 10 have gotten PAGER
Not only has his son Colonel Kuser now
secured the fastest mile record of
Europe, 2:l4 ITO, repeating in 2:14 $40,
after having trotted the greatest CAM
paign ever known there, but another of
his sons, NomiIee (2:l7D that was ex-
ported TO Russia two years ago, won
the great free for-all stallion race of the
year at st Petersburg, thus acquiring the
highest turf honors.
This latter horse peculiarly repre-
sents the blood of three of the most
famous trotting mares OF their day, for,
through Stranger, he takes from Gold
smith Maid and Lady Thorn, while his
dam was a daughter of their stable
companion, Lucy, a trio of trotting
queens that 20 years ago were even
more widely know than Alix, Nancy
Hanks and Sunol are today.
The old stock was of good timber,
and is climbing TO the top again in
new pedigees We make a more bril-
liant showing with the bicycle wheel
sulky, and many have imagined that
modern horses are vastly faster than the
old ones. The report of the result of
Joe Patchen's start TO the old high
wheeled sulky 10 beat Johnston's pacing
record 2:064 brought smile to the face
of many an old timer. Though Joe
Patchen failed, doubtless more than one
PAGER can be found to do it, for the
pacing limit was not so closely APP
preached as the trotting limit was under
the old regime.
There will be a broader smile, how
ever, when some ambitious trotter takes
up an old-style sulky and tries to beat
Sunol's records of POSI-. There may be
horse living that can do it, or more
than one, but few trials will convince
the people that horses that can do it
are not to be found at every hitching
post.