TROTTING NOTES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10104, 1 August 1893, Page 3

TROTTING NOTES.

[nr DIRECTOB.]

Dakota is reported to be looking very well just now. Ho is stated to be for sale at. £l5O. News comes from Southland to the effect that the well-known trotting gelding Waxy changed hands recently at £52.

Eata was entered for the Maiden Trot at the Canterbury Trotting Club’s Spring Meeting, but as it transpired that she had won a race, she was withdrawn. Mr W. Jardin’s trotting stallion, which he purchased in Australia, arrived in charge of bio owner on Saturday. The brother to Osterley appears in capital condition.

Mr J. Eogers, of Dromore, has a nicelooking mare, by Betrayer, running at Longbeach, with a handsome well-grown coic foal, by General Tracey. The mare is heavy in foal to the same horse. This would be a nice little lot for a trotting man to pick up. An article which appeared in a contemporary last week contained such severe strictures upon the management of a number of our Trotting Clubs that the New Zealand Trotoing Association has, it is reported, addressed a circular to all affiliated Clubs, asking them to state if the assertions are correct.

It is stated that the famous black gelding Jay-Eye-See, 2min lOsec (pacing 2min 6}sec), by Dictator, will be faster than ever. His uaaound leg is believed to be all right again, and if it keeps so, he is expected to tie or beat the pacing record.

At Overland Park, Denver, Col., on May 31, the twelve-year-old brown horse. Longtime, broke the six mile trotting record. It waa previously held by the chestnut gelding Satellite, by Tempter, who trotted in 16mm 53aec in 1889. Longtime trotted the distance with only one break in 16min Bsec.

A trotting match for 20 boys s-side, two miles, between Mr J, M’Kae's Train Oil and Mr W. Cloudesley’s Polly, was held on the Springfield racecourse on Monday. Train Oil was ridden by her owner, and Polly by E. G. Edwarda, and the former won easily by 150yds, covering the distance in 7min ISaec.

Commodore Vanderbilt, hia brother CsnUin Jacob H. Vanderbilt, and hie son William H. Vanderbilt were extremely fond of fast horses. His grandsons, Cornelius, Wiliiam K., Frederick and George, seem to have no such tastes, although William K. likes to go to the raoes and make modest wagers. The authorities of the Canterbury Trotting Club must be congratulated upon the number of nominations received for the Club’s Spring Meeting. Every event has filled well, and even tho Sires’ Handicap, for which by far the smallest number of entries has been received, is pretty certain to prove a moat interesting race. Among the entries for this event are Kentucky, General Tracey,Biuegown, Berlin Abdallah, Emmerson and Young Irvington, and if these go to the post the result will be well worth watching. The large number of nominations received by the Canterbury Trotting Club for its Spring Meeting has given rise to some discussion as to what constitutes the best on record for the Trotting Clubs about Christchurch. To save further trouble I here furnish particulars:— Lancaster Park Trotting Club, 180 nominations for seven events; Canterbury Trotting Club, 180 nominations for eight events; Plumpton Park Racing and Trotting Club, 173 nominations for eight events; Lower Heathcoto Racing and Trotting Club, 164 nominations for eight events. It will be noticed, therefore, that the Lancaster Park Trotting Club still holds the record. The Secretary of the Lancaster Park Trotting Club has forwarded me the balance-sheet for the year ending June 30. The following are the various items:— Receipts—(Nominations £419 ss, acceptances £312 2s 6d, less unpaid £33) £698 7a 6d, totalisator £BB7 18s 2d, gates £lO6 16s 6d, members’ subscriptions £l3 13s, aaie of horses £4O 10s, confectioners’

I booths £9, race cards £l4, total £1770 4s 3d, balance £177 Is 7d. Expenditure—- | Bent £l6O, stakes paid (net) .£llO6 ss, advertising £52 12s Bd, printing, &a., £2O 1 4a 10(1, gate men nnd course officials .£46 ' 7s 6d, stationery £4 2s 7d, subscripti'-n to I New Zealand Trotting Association £2 2s, stamps, telegrams, cab hire, &c., £2O 13s I 6d, refreshments Committee, Stewards, I &c., £l3 16b, Starter £l4 14s, Secretary £52. law expenses £2 2a, Handtcappera (four meetings) £6O, auctioneers £3 3s, painting numbers, &c., £1 10s, exchange on cheques £1 17a 6d, cheque book 16s, repairing board 16b, bonus to Secretary £3O, balance £177 Is 7d, total £1770 4s 2d. THE OEIGIN OP THE AMERICAN TEOTTEB, (Sydney’s "Bootc of the Hone.’ ’■) - By general consent it is agreed that much of the merit of the American trotter has been derived from the imported English thoroughbred stallion Messenger. This horse is registered in the- General Stud Book as a son of Mambrino and a mare by Turf, from Begulus mare by Starling out of Snap’s dam by Pox. He was foaled in 1780, and was exported to Philadelphia, United States, in 1788. Like his site Mambrino, he was grey in colour, 16*8 hands high, being thus exceptionally big for a thoroughbred in those days, when a horse that stood 14*2 bands was considered large. The sire of Messenger, the frey Mambrino, was bred by Mr obn Atkinson, of Bcboles, near Leeds, in 1768, and was sold at his decease in 1771 to Lord Grosvenor. He waa by Engineer, a son of Sampson, out of a mare by Old Cade, and it is stated that Mambrino was also sent to America, and " became the progenitor of the finest coach and trotting horses ever produced in any country, and before quitting England ho begot some coach horses that were never equalled.” As has been said, the grandsire of Mambrino and the great grandsire of Messenger was Sampson, a black horse of great size and power. Indeed, Lawrence observes of him that he was the strongest horse that ever raced before or since his time, and was entitled to preeminence if viewed as a hackney or a hunter. He waa 15& hands in height, and Lawrence asserts that at 20at, and perhaps 15st, he would have beaten over the course both Flying Childers and Eclipse. He was foaled in 1745, and in the btud Book is entered aa got by Blazs (a son of Childers) from Hip Mara by Spark. A doubt was raised by Lawrence as to the accuracy of his pedigree on the dam’s side, the allegation having been that the breeding of his dam was unknown, and that the mare appeared to be about three-parts bred.ln any oase.SampßOQ was of unusual size, and more resembled a coach horse than a thoroughbred, while both he and his grandson, Mambrino, possessed the faculty of trotting which Mecsenger had so successfully transmitted to all his progeny. In some notes recently published by Mr James E. Pratt on the breeding of American trotters, it is pointed out that Messenger was very extensively patronised in America, as his stock all trotted, and he was very largely bred into. The trotter Mambrino (called after hia grandsire) was Messenger’s greatest and most succesful son at the stnd. He is recorded as having been out of a thoroughbred mare; his name appears almost aa often as that of his sire, and he is the founder of two great lines of trotting blood—the Hambletonians and the Mambrino Chiefs—Mambrino Chief being aa a stallion only second to Hambletonian. Other blood influences in the early history of the trotter were the imported stallion Diomed (the winner of the first Koglish Derby), and the imported Norfolk trotter Bellfounder (Jary’s). Foaled in 1816, the latter was by Steven’s Bellfounder out of Velocity by Haphazard. Velocity trotted on the Norwich road, in 1806, sixteen miles in one hour forty-seven minutest Bellfounder trotted at five years old, in 1821, two miles in six minutes.' It was j tbo crossing of the Messenger blood with the Bellfounder strain that produced the king of trotting stallions, Eyedyk’s Hambletonian.