The period of fable and of falsehood in the genealogy of the American race horse seems to have commenced not long after the first importations of English race horses. In the first generations from the imported English horse and the native mare, it was rather difficult for a man to fix up a pedigree for his half-bred colt that would show him to be full bred, but after forty, fifty, or sixty years had elapsed the events became misty, and then every man exercised the right to make his own pedigrees to suit his own fancy. This seems to have been the condition of things for many years, and while there were a few honest men who would stick to the truth, the great majority either made their pedigrees to suit themselves or employed some “expert” to make them for them. The confusion which ensued was most perplexing, and the slipshod manner in which editors and writers on the horse did their work was most discouraging. Whatever was found in print on a crossroads blacksmith shop door was taken as authentic, because it was in print. In 1829 Mr. John S. Skinner, of Baltimore, Maryland, commenced the publication of a monthly magazine, entitled “_The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine_,” and as it really “filled a long-felt want,” it received a very encouraging support. As its name indicated its field, it at once became the authority on sporting events and the receptacle of a great amount of valuable correspondence on the horses of the day, as well as the earlier race horses. Mr. Skinner was industrious in collecting material for his magazine, but unfortunately he published whatever was sent to him relating to the horse, and just as it was sent. If a communication was well written, no difference how many errors of fact it might contain, it never seemed to occur to Mr. Skinner to use his blue pencil. Pedigrees were sent in, amounting to many thousands, during his ownership, with fictitious and untruthful remote extensions, and published without any possibility of tracing the different crosses to a known or responsible source or name. Here was the opportunity of a lifetime to “fix up” the pedigrees of stallions to suit the public demand and the fees sought by their owners, send them to Mr. Skinner, and have them duly spread before the public in all their dishonest finery. The early volumes are very rich in the accumulations of pedigrees, such as they are, and hence very valuable. The magazine received less and less attention from its proprietor each succeeding year and finally it was transferred to the _Spirit of the Times_, of New York, and died after an existence of some fifteen years.