“I should think he was a very swift _trotter from what I have seen_, and very sprightly and nearly white. He has got a great number of fine colts in this town which are three years old; and the probability of their drawing on the old horse’s business is the reason of his being removed to Le Roy and Batavia.”
Whether Judge Porter was a horseman or not he certainly reflected, in this remark which I have emphasized, the leading quality for which Bush Messenger was distinguished in that region _and in that day_.
Although he was certainly a very fast natural trotter, it is not known that he was ever trained an hour in his life, neither is it known that any fast or trained trotters ever came from his loins. This was the period of fast mail coaches running from Albany to Buffalo, and as the old proprietors of those great lines were pushed westward from State to State until they finally were driven across the Mississippi, I have many times heard them talk of the great slashing grey Messenger teams that would carry their coaches along at ten miles an hour, and lament that there were no such horses nowadays. There were other sons of Messenger and many grandsons, all known as “Messengers,” but as a progenitor of horses suited to the stage coach this particular one that broke his neck in trying to get out of his inclosure was the premier. He probably came nearer filling the place in this country that his grandsire filled in England—English Mambrino—than any other one of the tribe, for we can truly say of him, as Pick said of his grandsire, “from his blood the breed of horses for the coach was brought nearly to perfection.”
POTOMAC was a bright bay, fifteen and a half hands high, and was bred by Daniel Youngs, of Oyster Bay, Long Island. He was foaled 1796 and got by imported Messenger; dam by imported Figure; grandam by Bashaw. He was put on the turf in the spring of 1799 and was a respectable race horse at short distances. He ran against and beat some of the best of his day. He was on the turf about three years. In the midst of his racing career he was purchased by Mr. Van Ranst for five hundred pounds. In 1802 he was owned by Major William Jones, of Cold Spring Harbor, and made some seasons there. In 1806 he was at New Windsor, Orange County, New York. In 1808 he was in charge of Thomas Jackson, at Rahway, New Jersey, and 1811 at Crosswicks, near Trenton, New Jersey. It is probable he died about this time, as we find no further trace of him. Most of his stock were bays, of good size, and very salable animals. Nothing can now be recalled that connects him with any of the trotting strains coming from his sire. He was not strictly running-bred on the side of his dam.