Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1915-06-04
THE BATTELL MORGANS.

Mr.. II. >. Wdrder OF New Ork, |
President of the Morgan Horse Club,
has made a statement which will be !
read with interest in this section His !
admission of the value of the Morgan !
Horse Register, instituted and operated |
by Col. Battel, is significant Col
Battel had his own reasons for not ex-
hibiting more frequently at the State
fair, but when he did exhibit he brought |
home his share of the ribbons.
Mr.. Warder's letter. which appeared !
in the Springfield Republican, is as fol-
lows
Vermont newspapers have quoted
freely from your article on the dis.
persal sale of the Battell horses at
Middlebury, VT, and in some instances,
have seemed to share your regret that
these horses have become scattered.
The fact of the matter is, | believe,
that Col. Battell had not, in late years,
given much personal attention to horse
breeding. | am told, also, that some of
his mature horses had never been
broken He had rarely permitted his
horses to be shown at the Vermont State
! fair, which is the great exhibition place
and market for Morgans, and he did not
choose to restrict his scope of horse
breeding to the old-fashioned, settled
Morgan type or to blood lines that were
exclusively Morgan. So far, therefore,
as his horses have come into the hands
of Morgan breeders who are in the habit
of exhibiting at White River Junction
and whose ideas of breed are rather
more definite and conservative than
those of Col. Battell, am inclined to
think that the sale of the Battel horses
may turn out to be good thing for
Vermont and the Morgan industry.
1.-The great and valuable work of Col.
Battel in behalf of Morgan horses
was his investigation and publication
of their history and establishing on
Linsley's well-prepared foundation the
superstructure known as the American
! Morgan Register. 1t is chiefly through
this Register that Col. Battells
name is inseparably associated with
the Morgan horse. But the causes
which led to the almost complete
disappearance of the Morgan breed
were, in large part, the very sort of
breeding methods which Col. Battell
permitted to continue in his own
stables. Although he stated in the
first volume of the Register that the
Morgan horse was essentially general
purpose horse, Col. Battell never
quite expelled from his thoughts the
now discarded expectation that the
Morgan might be converted into a
large coach horse or swift trotter.
He believed sincerely, and in the face
of proof to the contrary, that a few
drops of Morgan blood could leaven an
,, overwhelming quantity of Handle
tonan or other alien admiXtures and
might perpetuate the Morgan breed
through such lines He had good
horses, handsome horses, horses that
e we've hardy because they were raised
on the Vermont hills. He loved horses
and the traditions CT the Vermont
, Morgans. But the Morgan breeders of
today find that their foundation stock,
instead of being derived from the
breeders of the Col. Battell school,
came from such breeders as the Peterses
of Bradford, the Smiths and the
Walters of East Haven. the Rose
brookses of Island Pond the ldes OF
/ Lyndon and the Watsons and CIRCUITS
of Burke, who had very precise ideas
regarding the Morgan type and BLOOD
lines and who were willing to acknowl
edge the limitations of the breed. -