During the two or three last years of her public life, Flora Temple had nothing to beat, so she was sent all over the country “hippodroming” with Princess and George M. Patchen, variously. On the farm she dropped a few colts. Two were by sons of Hambletonian, and one by imported Leamington. They have not done much to perpetuate her prowess. My own idea is that in selecting mates for her the great cardinal principle of breeding: “like begets like,” was utterly disregarded. The blood of a Hambletonian was probably too cold to mate with hers, though we do not know what hers was, and Leamington’s conformation was too great a contrast. Though she has left no descendants that do her particular honor, she has left by her performances imperishable fame as the greatest trotter of her day, and her day lasted for more than a dozen years. There was a lull in trotting during the Civil War, just as there was in racing, but after the war the trotting tracks became even more popular than the running courses—not the most fashionable, but the most popular. Fashion has never forsaken the running horse, and probably never will; but in the main, the trotting races have been patronized and managed by men of a slightly different social status. To be sure, there are notable exceptions, exceptions so notable, indeed, that they ought to be sufficient to lift the ban from the trotting world; but they have never been able to do it. And even during the ten years after the Civil War, when trotting was immensely popular, it was considered slightly a reproach to be interested in the sport. It was during this period that Dexter took the trotting primacy away from Flora Temple, and the tribe of Hambletonian came into such prominence that the legislators who framed trotting-match rules, established a register and made laws fixing a standard entitling a stallion or a mare to a place in these sacred books. And so the “Standard Bred Trotter” came into being, and his has been a long day—his advocates and admirers say a great day. CHAPTER SIX RYSDYK’S HAMBLETONIAN AND THE STANDARD BRED TROTTERS