Chapter XXXII (2)

That the development of the speed of the parents was very important, if not necessary to the increased speed of the progeny, was a proposition that was long disputed. Generally, as on other questions, each man argued it from the standpoint of his own stable, but not a few men of clear minds took that side of the question without regard to the potency of the law of heredity. In the early stages of the discussion of this question it was a difficult one to handle effectively. At that time very few sires, and still a less proportion of dams, had ever been regularly developed as trotters, hence the field for generalization was narrow and many of the instances quoted were disputed. For a time the battle raged quite fiercely around Hambletonian, as he was the most prominent stallion of that period, and if a man was trying to build up another family he would rave till he got black in the face against “Bill Rysdyk’s bull.” It is but just to say that the man who led in all this froth and fury against Hambletonian was engaged in breeding what he called “Clay Arabs,” and after dodging his creditors for a number of years his last hoof was sold from him by the sheriff. On the other hand, Hambletonian made his master a rich man, and he left a large estate. Hambletonian was only partially developed, but sufficient to show he was a fast colt for his period. (For full particulars see his history in another chapter.) Abdallah was a very great sire of speed and he was not a developed trotter, but his dam, old Amazonia, was quite fully developed. She won many races and was the fastest trotter of her day. Whether her speed came from a fast pacing ancestry, or whether it came from the reputed “son of Messenger,” as stated when she was bought near Philadelphia, never can be determined. The “son of Messenger” story seemed to be straight, but her form was coarse and plain, and her legs were so hairy that many who knew her best condemned the story; hence, all we can say about her is simply that she was a fast developed trotter. Andrew Jackson had but little trotting inheritance from his sire, and his dam was a fast pacing mare of unknown breeding, but his speed was very fully developed as a trotter, and he became the progenitor of the Clay and the Long Island Black Hawk families, that became famous in trotting history. While this reasoning was true in experience and sound under the canons of science, it was not strong and convincing, for the one and only reason that the basis of the generalization was too narrow and lacked in a sufficient number of cases to convince the understanding of the skeptical. We have had to wait for the accumulation of the experiences of a number of years, and now we have the evidence that is so complete as to be really startling and which no man can gainsay. The following little table embraces all the breeding farms in this country that have produced three or more trotters with records of 2:15 or better, and here the rate of speed is certainly high enough and the foundation is certainly broad enough to furnish just and safe conclusions:

Leland Stanford 18
Fashion Stud Farm 13
William Corbitt 9
Wm. H. Wilson 8
C. J. Hamlin 7
Glenview Farm 6
Timothy Anglin 5
Henry C. Jewett 4
Wm. C. France 4
Woodburn Farm 4
Robert G. Stoner 4
R. S. Veech 3
C. W. Williams 3
Highland Farm (Lee, Mass.) 3
Fairlawn Farm 3
E. W. Ayers 3
Charles Backman 3
George H. Ely 3
Mrs. S. L. Stout 3
Monroe Salisbury 3

Quite a number of other breeders have produced one or two that have made records in 2:15 or better, but I think the above list embraces all that have bred three or more with trotting records of 2:15 or better. The table will be a surprise to everybody, but I doubt whether it will be a greater surprise to anybody than it is to myself. At the head of the list stands the late Senator Stanford’s great establishment with eighteen to its credit, but this is not a fair basis of comparison with any other establishment in the whole country, for he had about three hundred mares in the trotting department of his breeding stud—about six times as large as the average of the larger studs of the country. The average number of horses in training, the year round, was about eighty, exclusive of yearlings and the kindergarten. In attempting to institute a comparison, therefore, with the average breeders of the country, we might as well compare the daily receipts of John Wanamaker’s store with those of the little green-grocer on the corner. But at the head of this establishment stood the great Electioneer with his strong breeding and trotting speed well developed, and indeed, in many respects the greatest horse of his generation. He was the sire of eleven in the list, and the remainder were either by his sons or out of his daughters.

Mr. Henry N. Smith, of New York, a prominent Wall Street man, became greatly interested in trotting sport, and in 1868 he organized a trotting stable of his own, which contained some remarkable animals, as will be seen below. His stable was very successful, and this success naturally increased his attachment to the trotting interests. He then determined to establish a breeding farm, and about the year 1869 he purchased the famous old Fashion Course adjoining Trenton, New Jersey, embracing one hundred and forty-five acres of land and provided with an excellent mile track and much stabling that had been constructed years before for running horses. This property he very appropriately named the “Fashion Stud Farm,” and on it he placed the grandest assemblage of developed trotters, for breeding purposes only, that had ever been brought together in this or any other country. His stallions were Jay Gould, 2:20½, Tattler, 2:26, and Gen. Knox, 2:31½. This was Knox’s fastest record, but it was known he had trotted miles, in races, faster than this. The speed of all three horses was developed, and it is evident at a glance that there was only one first-class horse among them. But the great strength of the establishment was in the grand galaxy of mares, some of which I will enumerate, namely. Goldsmith Maid, 2:14, Lady Thorn, 2:18¼, Lucy, 2:18¼, Lady Maud, 2:18¼, Rosalind, 2:21¾, Belle Strickland, 2:26, Western Girl, 2:27, Idol, 2:27, Big Mary, 2:28½, Daisy Burns, 2:28, Music’s Dam (that had produced 2:21½ speed), besides others with slower records or known to have had their speed developed as fast road mares, making in all about thirty mares on the farm, and Mr. Smith claimed that every one of them had shown more or less speed as trotters.

Mr. Smith neither knew nor cared much about pedigrees, in a general sense, and when you came to talk to him about “nicks” and “trotting pitch” and all that kind of tomfoolery, his mind simply recurred to the old adage uttered generations ago: “Trot father, trot mother, trot colt.” His whole philosophy was wrapped up in the one central truth that the horse that could go out and trot fast, when bred on the mare that could go out and trot fast, would produce a colt that would go out and trot fast. This was sufficient for him or indeed for anybody else, for it contains and expresses the whole substance of the laws of heredity. Mr. Smith’s great mares acquired in their training and development new characters and new capacities which they never would have possessed had it not been for the care and skill expended in their training. Here we touch the very marrow of a question around which the scientists of today are warring. Darwin taught that such acquisitions were transmissible, of the truth of which I have no doubt, but a post-Darwinian school has arisen which controverts this position, and claims that it weakens and destroys the whole evolution theory of creation. But it matters not about the hypothesis of evolution concerning things we know, for it is simply an attempt to show how all things might have been created without a Creator. I have read a great deal about evolution and the transmissibility of acquired characters, but in all I have read I never have met with a lesson so broad and so strong as that furnished by Henry N. Smith’s great mares, proving that acquired characters are transmitted.

In instituting a comparison between the high-class products of the Palo Alto and the Fashion Stud Farms, it seems to be necessary to place the premier stallions of the two side and side. They were half-brothers on the side of the sire, but Electioneer had the greatest speed-producing dam of her generation. She was a fast natural trotter herself, and was out of a fast and fully developed trotter. Jay Gould was out of a good road mare by American Star, but nobody has ever said she had any speed, and she was out of a nondescript mare that we know nothing about. Gould’s dam never produced any other trotter with a reputable rate of speed, so far as I have been able to learn. Electioneer was trained and developed by Mr. Backman, but he never was in a race, and consequently he has no official record. After he was taken to Palo Alto he was given quite regular work, and it is beyond all doubt that when in stud condition he could show a quarter in a little better than a 2:20 gait. The difference in the rate of speed, therefore, as between the two horses was not very great, but whatever it was must go to the credit of Jay Gould. But the offspring of Electioneer had a very great advantage over those of Jay Gould in the methodical and skillful development of their speed. In his maternal inheritance as a trotter, as already indicated, Electioneer had a marked superiority, and on an equally high class of developed mares he would have far outstripped his rival. Now, with this attempt at a clean-cut description of the two horses, we are ready to consider the question in its arithmetical elements, and it will be found a plain question of “simple proportion” which anybody can solve in a minute, as follows: “If the Fashion Stud Farm from thirty mares produced thirteen trotters with public records of 2:15 or better, how many of equal capacity should the Palo Alto Farm have produced from three hundred mares?” The answer is one hundred and thirty, but the facts, up to the close of 1896, furnish us with the beggarly number of eighteen.

The grand assemblage of so many great trotters at the Fashion Stud Farm, and all for the purpose of breeding, was the subject of much comment among breeders from one end of the land to the other, and not a few pronounced it all wrong and that it would be succeeded by failure. Mr. Smith lacked some of the elements that go toward making a man popular, and hence, in many cases, there was not much sympathy between him and his brother breeders, but he held tenaciously to the central truth that the way to breed high-class trotters was to mate high-class trotters. His experience has clearly demonstrated the soundness of this canon of breeding, and it has just as clearly demonstrated the unsoundness of the notion that high-class trotters can be bred from animals that never trotted and never could be made to trot. The law, as we have taught it for years, has been vindicated, and that by experiences so wide and so complete that it can no longer be controverted. Mr. Smith has achieved a great honor, and as a producer of high-class speed he stands at the head of all American trotting-horse breeders.

As we have now considered a great triumph, with the causes that led up to it and the lesson it has taught, it seems to be in order to give an example of a great failure and the causes which have produced it. For more than forty years Woodburn Farm, in Kentucky, has been breeding trotters, and up to the close of 1896 just four with records of 2:15 or better have hailed from that great establishment. During all these years, and until Palo Alto Farm was established, Woodburn was the largest establishment in this country. With thousands of broad acres of the most productive soil, with the possession and control of money without limit, and with the experiences of forty years in which to select and breed only to the best, it is the natural and reasonable expectation of everybody interested in the question of breeding the trotter to look to Woodburn as leading all other establishments in the whole world in the production of first-class trotters. And what has Woodburn done? With her experiences of forty years, with all her broad acres and boundless wealth, up to the close of 1896 she has produced just four trotters with records of 2:15 or better. Instead of leading all others, she is at the wrong end of the procession, and if we consider the proportional advantages involved, we find that “all others,” little and big, are leading her. By referring to the above list of breeders that have produced three or more with records of 2:15 or better, we find that Henry N. Smith has produced thirteen, that William Corbett, from his little stud in California, has produced nine, and that the late William H. Wilson, of Cynthiana, Kentucky, from his little band of mares, and without either broad acres or money, has produced eight within the past twelve or fifteen years, and all except one by the same horse. This places Mr. Wilson first among all Kentucky breeders. In the short period of its existence Glenview Farm produced six, and the quite unpretentious farmer, Mr. Timothy Anglin, produced five; W. C. France and Colonel R. G. Stoner produced four each—the same number as Woodburn—but they did not require forty years to accomplish it. Thus the breeding world, with “the little fellows” on top, has gone away ahead and left Woodburn to mumble over her “tin cups,” and exult in the many triumphs she has won against the watch in 2:30. The policy of Woodburn for years past seems to have been to hold the lead of Kentucky breeders in the production of 2:30 trotters, and to this end the youngsters are put in training in the early spring and kept at it till the frosts come, when such of them as are sure to win are brought out and started against the watch, for a “tin cup,” and these are the victories that Woodburn wins. Nobody has ever heard of Woodburn entering a youngster in a stake where he would have to win on his merits. That would be bringing him down to an equality with the colts of such people as William H. Wilson, Colonel R. G. Stoner, Farmer Timothy Anglin, and all the other “little fellows.” Woodburn has made a great deal of money out of these humbug tin-cup records, and as registration and the standard are now absolutely under the control of her manager, the 2:30-tin-cup still remains the evidence of a fast trotter, worthy of standard rank. True, everybody nowadays laughs at the idea that 2:30, with the “tin cup,” is any evidence of even reputable speed, but as they have given a certain kind of pre-eminence and made money in the past, the twins will not be separated, but will hold their places just as long as the standard is under the present control.

From this brief examination of the symptoms I think a safe diagnosis can be made. The trouble seems to be twofold, or it may be said there are two troubles, either one of which is dangerous, but the two together may prove fatal in the end. It is a well-known fact in veterinary science that there are certain diseases among horses that may be communicated to the men who have them in charge. There is one disease, vulgarly called “big-head,” that comes creeping upon its victim before he is aware of its existence or approach, and against the insidious steps of this destroyer the manager at Woodburn should be affectionately warned. Sham records of 2:30 for standard rank are no longer welcomed with enthusiasm in this country. The other trouble is not so much with the manager as with the material which he manages, which seems to be affected with what may be called “dry-rot.” This view of the non-productive character of the Woodburn breeding stock, when measured by first-class performers, seems to be borne out by the fact that the names of those gentlemen who have depended most largely on Woodburn blood do not appear on the foregoing list as the producers of first-class trotters. For about forty years the fame of Woodburn as the greatest of all our breeding establishments has been as wide as the boundaries of the nation. But notwithstanding the weight and influence which great wealth and an unblemished name may have secured, the records up to the close of the year 1896 have deposed her from the first rank as a breeder of trotting horses, and sent her away to the rear, where she now occupies her true place in the eighth rank. It is well known to everybody that, since the days of the first Mr. Alexander, Woodburn has never entered a colt in a stake nor started one against other people’s colts, prize or no prize. This air of assumed superiority is sought to be explained on high moral grounds against the evils of horse-racing. This is like the man who never tasted whisky for conscience’ sake, in view of the great evil it was doing in the world, and yet he was the chief owner in a large distillery. At the great local meetings in Kentucky practically all the breeding establishments of that region, except Woodburn, are represented in the stakes, and while they are being contested Woodburn will come in with a string of youngsters, between the heats, and win sham records in 2:30 for “tin cups.” Depending on this kind of test and this kind of development, it is not remarkable that all the small breeders of the State have left Woodburn in the rear. This shining example of failure teaches unmistakably the necessity of honest and full development of breeding stock in order to produce high-class trotters.