There are a good many misstatements in that paragraph; but when I wrote it I was deceived by the false pedigrees which have been manufactured and recorded in the trotting-horse registers and stud-books. The truth is, that Hambletonian was a bull-like horse that was trained by Hiram Woodruff, but could never develop a speed equal to a mile in three minutes—3.18, to be exact, being the best mile he ever did. As to his pedigree: Mambrino, the grandsire, was by Messenger; but he was worthless and also vicious. He could neither run nor trot. He was bred by Louis Morris, of Westchester County, New York, and sold to Major William Jones of Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. As he was worthless and a serious disappointment, Major Jones virtually gave him away, and he was used as a traveling stallion at a small fee. John Treadwell, a Quaker farmer near Jamaica, Long Island, had two Conestoga[6] or Pennsylvania Dutch draft-mares. Out of one of these mares, by Mambrino, was born Abdallah. This horse was so bad-tempered that he could never be broken to harness, but was ridden under the saddle. He had no speed either as a runner or trotter, not being able to do a mile in four minutes at any gait. He had a mule-like head and ears, a badly ewed neck, and a rattail. But he was a Messenger, despite the Conestoga crossing, and he was sold to Kentuckians for $4500. In less than six months the Kentuckians repented of their bargain, and sold him back to New Yorkers for $500—Messrs. Simmons & Smith, Bull’s Head dealers, buying him as a speculation. No purchaser could the speculators find at any price, and the stallion was virtually given away to stop expenses of keeping. About this time Charles Kent wanted a new horse for his butcher wagon, and traded, through Alexander Campbell, of Bull’s Head, his worn out mare to Edmund Seeley, a farmer in Orange County, New York, for a steer for butchering. The butcher’s mare had, originally, been sold to him by Campbell, who had obtained her in a drove of western horses, paying $40 for her. Her pedigree was quite unknown. This mare is known in American horse history as the Charles Kent mare, and is said to be by imported Bellfounder. She was in foal to Abdallah when Seeley got her, and the colt and mare became the property of Bill Rysdyk, a hired man on Seeley’s farm. Rysdyk looked around for a name for his colt—a name which should indicate the Messenger blood in him. There had been in the early years of the century a famous son of Messenger named after Alexander Hamilton. This horse finally became known as Bishop’s Hamiltonian. In his effort to borrow the name, Rysdyk, being weak in his orthography, called his horse Rysdyk’s Hambletonian. And so he lives in history—false in his pedigree as in his name. The public of that day believed this horse to be a son of Bishop’s Hamiltonian, and for the sake of the Messenger blood he was served to the best mares in Orange County, and