The chapter on “The Sons of Messenger” will be long, but it will be of exceeding interest. They constitute the connecting link that brings together the peculiar trotting instincts of the sire and develops them in their own progeny. Several of them were not only trained to run, but did run successfully. It is not known that any of his sons was ever trained to trot, but it is known from contemporaneous evidence that several of them were fast natural trotters, notably Bishop’s Hambletonian, Bush Messenger, Winthrop Messenger, Mambrino, etc., all of which will be considered in their proper place. When we reach the second remove from Messenger we begin to enter into the full fruition of all the promises, and in considering such animals as Abdallah, Almack, Mambrino Paymaster, Harris’ Hambletonian, etc., we begin to feel that we are well within the trotting latitudes, for this remove began to found families and tribes that attracted the attention of all intelligent breeders.
In the next remove from Messenger we strike the most famous of all trotting progenitors in Rysdyk’s Hambletonian. At one time there was an active and determined difference of opinion among breeders as to which of three horses, Hambletonian, Ethan Allen, or Mambrino Chief, would in the end prove to be the most successful sire. This controversy may not be remembered by the younger of the present generation of horsemen, but it was bitter and uncompromising, and it presents a lesson so important that it may be here referred to. The adherents of Ethan Allen argued that as he was handsomer, that his gait was the very perfection of trotting action, and that he was incomparably faster than either of the other two, he must of necessity prove the most successful in begetting trotters. The adherents of Mambrino Chief used the same argument, with the exception of beauty and style, and dwelt strongly on the fact that he was a faster horse than Hambletonian, and would consequently get faster offspring. Both these arguments were good, so far as they went, but they lacked completeness and hence were not sound. Neither Ethan Allen nor Mambrino Chief had a dam, and so far as we know the inheritance of both was restricted to the male side of the house. Development of speed is a valuable and real qualification in any sire, but all experience goes to show that it is only a help to an inheritance. Hambletonian was not much developed, but it is conceded on all hands that he could show a 2:40 gait at any time and that his action was very perfect. He was got by a grandson of Messenger, whose dam, Amazonia, was one of the fastest mares of her generation, whatever her blood may have been. Abdallah got more and faster trotters than any other grandson of Messenger, and his daughters were very famous as the producers of trotters. Hambletonian’s dam, the Kent Mare, was by imported Bellfounder, a horse that got no trotters practically, but this mare was the fastest four-year-old of her time, and that because she was out of a very fast mare, One Eye, that was a double granddaughter of Messenger. That is, One Eye was by Hambletonian, the son of Messenger, and out of Silvertail, a daughter of Messenger. This double Messenger mare was unknown to the trotting turf, but she was well known throughout Orange County as a remarkably fast trotter. Hence Hambletonian not only possessed more Messenger blood than any horse of his generation, but that blood came to him through developed trotters, and he had a right to surpass all competitors, especially the two that were, at one time, the most prominent.