The importation of the Thoroughbred into this country began in Colonial Virginia, where there was then probably more sporting blood than there is now, when it cannot be said to be at all pallid, but on the contrary very red. The first Thoroughbred of which there is record, and the record is not as exact as we should like, was brought to Virginia in 1730, by Messrs. Patton and Gist, and was called Bulle Rock. He was said to have been foaled in 1718, and to have been sired by the Darley Arabian, first dam by the Byerly Turk. That was good breeding, and the gentlemen of Virginia accepted, to an extent, at least, the invitation of Bulle Rock’s owners to use his services in improving the general stock of the Old Dominion, for every now and then in the very oldest records he appears in the genealogy. How good the horses were that were landed in Virginia previous to this time, we can not say, but only presume that they were as good as the importers could find and afford to buy, for they were fox hunters and hard riders from the beginning of their coming. After Bulle Rock’s coming to Virginia, very quickly Dabster, Jolly Ranger, Janus, and Fearnaught followed. The South Carolinians were not long behind the Virginians in their importations, and by 1760 a jockey club had been established in Charleston, and regular race meetings were held. Many of the wealthy land owners imported and bred horses for these contests. In the same year that this club was founded, Colonel De Lancey, of New York, brought out Lath from England, and a little later Wildair, the horse supposed by some to have been the great grandsire of the dam of Justin Morgan, founder of the Morgan type of Vermont. About the same time there came to New York the Cub Mare and Fair Rachel, both still famous in the pedigrees in the “American Stud Book.” These matrons found homes in Virginia, and assisted in the making of those old time “four mile heat” horses, the only kind which our ancestors deemed really first rate. Before the Revolutionary War there was much racing in Long Island as well as in Virginia and the Carolinas, but the great contests between states and sections did not begin till a later date. During the Revolutionary War there were few importations of Thoroughbreds, but when the young country had a little recovered in her industries from the effects of that conflict, the importations began again and in 1788 the gray stallion Messenger, the founder in some measure of our trotting stock, was brought out, and in 1799 the Derby winner Diomed—the most important of all horses, so far as race-horses in America are concerned—came out to Virginia. Of Messenger, much will be said in the proper place; of Diomed, here is the place to speak of his record and his influence on the Thoroughbreds born to America. As a race-horse he was par excellence the horse of his day in England, carrying practically everything before him while that day lasted. But he was kept in training