Several of the sons of Hambletonian, as shown by the tabular statistics which will be introduced, became greater than their sire, not only in getting trotters from their own loins, but in transmitting the trotting instinct to their descendants. The growth and spread of this family is far and away beyond any precedent that can be cited in any age or country, and is simply marvelous. It is said that fully ninety per cent. of the fast trotters now on the turf have more or less of the blood of Hambletonian in their veins, and I think it is a safe conclusion to say that no intelligent breeder in all the country is trying to produce trotters without it. All the other tribes are dropping out of sight, and at the present ratio of rise and fall it will be but a few years till every trotter on the turf will be credited in some degree to the one really great progenitor, Hambletonian. The other tribes will not be blotted out nor will their merits be lost, but absorbed into the mightier tribe. Such families as the Bashaws, the Clays, the Black Hawks, the Mambrino Chiefs, the Pilots, the American Stars, the Blue Bulls, etc., will be fully considered through several chapters, according to their strength and merit. As these families have not been able to hold their own in the rush to the front, and as they seem to be falling further to the rear in the number and quality of their performers each succeeding year, we may as well begin to designate them as “the minor families.” Their inheritance was feeble and unsatisfactory, and more or less sporadic, and we never had any right to expect a brilliant and permanent success from such beginnings.