The question here arises whether Mambrino ever showed any remarkable trotting action himself that would seem to justify this estimate of the trotting action of his descendants? Several writers, and among them Mr. Lawrence, have spoken of this peculiarity of Mambrino’s incidentally, but the most tangible account we have of it is furnished by an English writer to the _Sporting Magazine_, who dates his letter from the “Subscription Rooms, Tattersall’s, 1814.” These “subscription rooms” were the very focus of sporting events, and this writer seems to be unusually intelligent on this class of subjects. The object and point of his communication is to prove that no thoroughbred horse could be developed into a fast trotter. “Hence,” he says, “no thoroughbred was ever known capable of trotting sixteen miles within the hour, and only one stands on record as having trotted fifteen miles within one hour. That was Infidel, by Turk, who performed it in the North, carrying nine or ten stone. Several race horses have been supposed capable of trotting fourteen miles in one hour, and it is reported that the late Lord Grosvenor once offered to match Mambrino to do it for a thousand guineas.” Now this writer does not say that Lord Grosvenor really made such an offer, but only that he was “reported” to have made it. This does not prove that the offer was formally made, but it does prove that Mambrino had a very remarkable trotting step or such a topic would not have been considered at Tattersall’s subscription rooms. As this writer seems to refer to Mambrino and Infidel only as exceptional horses for their trotting step among thoroughbreds, we may take it for granted that Mambrino was considered exceptional, in his day. It is not probable that he was ever trained an hour at the trot, and we must conclude, therefore, that whatever speed he showed was his natural and undeveloped gait. It will be observed that Mr. Pick’s paragraph was dated 1805, and the letter from the “subscription rooms” 1814, so that they could not have been mere reflections of theories advanced on this side of the Atlantic in relation to Messenger being a great source of trotting speed. These two facts were on record long before any “Messenger theories” were in existence, and those “theories” were formulated long before these two facts were known. The conclusions reached on both sides of the water are entirely harmonious, but they were reached in complete independence of each other.