A courage, vitality, and zest seemed to be in the very air of the world at that period of horse history, and the blend--through his father--of Arabian, Barb and Turk had produced in him the most ideal of horse characters. That Southern strain was, no doubt, stimulated by the clear, bracing climate of New England, and the combination of circumstances which developed his muscles and expanded his chest, made him the fit founder of a race. About the year he was born Eclipse, his kins-horse, died. Eclipse was that four-footed bird “behind whom the whirlwind toiled in vain” and who, in his greatest race, “beat the other horse by two hundred yards, without urging!”[3] Since then men have said that Eclipse ran “a mile a minute,” but Gipsey told her son differently; she knew horses only ran against each other, not against time. She also told the colt the part his family had played in the late War, and how General Washington, himself, had ridden one of them at Trenton; but she was obliged to confess, with a droop of her spirited tail, that his father, True Briton had, in his youth, served a British officer. So graphic were some of these war-tales that the young horse quivered, and almost imagined he heard the crack of muskets and smelt the smoke of battle! He dreamed longingly of a time when he, too, might serve his country under the saddle of some brave soldier, and his nostrils grew wide and his eyes fiery at the hope which was so long afterwards to be realized. Had she been a woman, and men had seen the workings of her mind as she instructed her son, Gipsey might have been called a witch and as such been burned. With pointing ears and ember-like eyes she neighed softly to him of the Desert; she seemed to hear its call; to see its trackless wastes, and afar, at its limits, she told him groves of olive and date, and pools of clear, cool water lay. One day, with that far-off look in her eyes, she said to him, prophetically: “When other horses, now famous, are forgotten, my son, your memory will live on, your influence will still be felt. Men will still love you and you will be praised and revered by all who have knowledge of excellence in horse-flesh. A state will be noted for its horses, and Allah has chosen you to be the first of this line.” She told him to be ever brave, gentle, and loving; obedient to his master, Man; not to falter, not to turn back never mind the cost. She told him how to anticipate a command, that he might obey, instantly, and he afterwards became so proficient in this sense that when he came to be trained to harness he obeyed Silas Whitman’s every gesture, as if instinctively, often before the words themselves came. In later life, becoming more experienced, he often took the initiative in times of danger or peril.[4] When True was a little over a year old Master Whitman brought a piebald horse to live in their stable. Poor old Ceph was of low birth and very stupid.