Having completed a brief historical sketch of horse history from the beginning, and many events connected therewith, we are now ready to consider the American Trotting Horse, as the culmination of what has been written. Thus far we have met with much pretentious nonsense, claiming to be history and written by men who never gave the subject the study of an honest hour. The horse is honest enough, but the rule seems to be almost universal that whenever men commence to write about him they are guided by their imagination and not by the facts. As to what we are to meet in the coming chapters, I can only say that, unfortunately, “the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” The instinct to misrepresent has been transmitted, and I cannot promise that we will find any great moral improvement among the horsemen of our own country and generation. For more than three-quarters of a century, and indeed from the first trotting experiences of this country that have been preserved, it has been the unanimous judgment of all who have given any thought or attention to the subject that the imported English horse, Messenger, was the great central source of trotting speed. As the years have rolled by this opinion has increased in strength until it has become an intelligent and demonstrated belief. When, forty years ago, a horse was found able to trot a mile in two minutes and thirty seconds, the speed was deemed wholly phenomenal, but that speed has been increased, second by second, until we are now on the very brink of two minutes. In this process every second and fraction of a second that has been cut off has been so much additional proof of the universal belief that Messenger was the chief progenitor of the American trotter. He is not the only source of trotting speed, but he is the chief source. Whence he derived this distinctive power to transmit trotting speed will be made more clear as we proceed. His blood left no deep nor lasting impress upon the running horses of the country, and it is seldom we meet with any trace of it in the running horse of to-day, but it is prominent and conspicuous at the winning post of every trotting track on this continent. This will be made apparent when we come to consider the details and the merits of the mighty tribes and families that have descended from him.