Henry Clay was one of the greatest horses that ever lived in this country. He was very fast, very strong and as game as it was possible for a horse to be. He founded a distinguished family, and from that family Mr. Randolph Huntington, of Fleetwood Farm, Oyster Bay, Long Island, by crossing Clay mares with Arab and Barb stallions, has created a type of as splendid horses as ever touched the earth. And it is a great pity that the United States Government has not long ago taken over all of Mr. Huntington’s horses, so as to perpetuate this new and useful type into a great national horse. On the sire’s side Henry Clay was a closely inbred Messenger. He was by Andrew Jackson, the greatest trotting horse of his day, and absolutely unbeaten during all his long career. Andrew Jackson was by Young Bashaw, and his dam was by Why Not, by imported Messenger, the grandam also being by imported Messenger. Young Bashaw was by the imported Arabian Grand Bashaw, the dam being Pearl by First Consul (Arab bred) out of Fancy by imported Messenger out of a daughter of Rockingham. Henry Clay’s dam was the famous mare, Lady Surrey. She was bred in the neighbourhood of Quebec, Ontario, and was brought with twelve other horses into New York. With her mate, “Croppy,” she was sold to one of the Wisner family in Goshen, New York. The class to which Lady Surrey belonged was then called Kanucks, though some called them “Pile Drivers,” because of their high-knee action. Records of breeding were not kept in Quebec, but all the external evidence points to an Oriental origin of the horses that were taken there from France. But the strong admixture of Arab and Barb blood in Henry Clay is evident from the recorded part of his pedigree and disregarding the blood of his dam.

Henry Clay was foaled in 1837, and lived until 1867. He was bred by Mr. George M. Patchen, of New Jersey, and afterwards passed into the hands of Gen. William Wadsworth, of Geneseo, New York. Probably, if he had remained the property of Patchen, he would have had a better chance as a sire, for there were times during the Wadsworth ownership, when this horse suffered alternately from neglect and abuse. When General Wadsworth wanted to buy the colt, he asked Mr. Patchen to put a price on him. Mr. Patchen, not anxious to sell, finally put on a price which he thought prohibitive. “We will give the horse all the water he can drink,” he said to General Wadsworth, “and then weigh him, and you may give me one dollar a pound for him.” General Wadsworth promptly accepted, and the horse weighing 1050 pounds, that fixed the price, which was paid immediately, and the horse was sent at once to Livingston County, New York.

Once when General Wadsworth had a match at mile heats, best three in five, he drove his horse ninety-eight miles the day before the race, rather than pay forfeit, and then won the race, one heat being trotted in 2.35. This was in 1847. Consider the clumsy shoes, the heavy sulkies, and other impedimenta of that time, in comparison with the wire-like plates, ball-bearing, pneumatic-tired sulkies, and cobweb-like harness of to-day, and decide whether even the most phenomenal of our trotters is better than that.

Another performance shows the stoutness of heart of this great horse. General Wadsworth needed a doctor for his sister. Henry Clay was harnessed to a two-seated wagon, did the journey from Geneseo to Rochester, thirty-eight miles, and then back again, the whole seventy-six miles being covered in less than five hours. A horse that could do that was worthy to found a family. He did this through his son, Black Douglas, his grandson, Cassius M. Clay, and his grandson, George M. Patchen. His female descendants are conspicuous in the trotting-horse pedigrees, the most conspicuous among them being Green Mountain Maid, the dam of Electioneer, and conceded by the Standard Bred Trotter element to be the greatest dam in American horse history. She was got by Harry Clay,^[7] a great grandson of the founder of the family.

Mr. Huntington has long believed that the Clay was the best trotting blood in America, and when this blood was spoken of contemptuously by Mr. Robert Bonner and called “Sawdust” Mr. Huntington’s indignation knew no bounds. However, the blood could never become unpopular after the record of the Green Mountain Maid in producing trotters. All of her colts could trot—she had sixteen—and trot fast. But Mr. Huntington’s opportunity to utilize this Clay blood came when General Grant received a present of two stallions from the Sultan of Turkey. When General Grant took his famous trip around the world, the Sultan entertained him at Constantinople. Among the things that particularly interested the General there were the Sultan’s stables. The Sultan hearing of this, selected two of the best stallions in his collection and gave them to the General. The stallions were Leopard, an Arab, and Linden Tree, a Barb. Mr. Huntington at once set about getting General Grant’s consent to use these horses for breeding. He got the consent and set about securing what he considered proper mares. It seems a pity that General Grant had not turned these horses entirely over to Mr. Huntington. He was not himself a breeder, and after he reached middle life was only interested in driving horses. So these stallions were really white elephants on his hands. But Mr. Huntington might have made a more extensive use of them than he did. His theory was that these horses should be bred to virgin Clay mares. And he secured several of them. As a breeder Mr. Huntington is one of those who hold to the theory that a mare once pregnant to a horse is liable, if not likely, in later foals to “throw back”, as it is somewhat technically expressed, and show in these later foals the characteristics of the sire of the first pregnancy. This is a matter of dispute among breeders. The theory has been proved, so far as dogs are concerned, in my own experience. I had a fox terrier bitch. She was accidentally served by a spaniel. When she was next bred it was to a proper fox terrier and there was no chance of error. The ensuing litter of puppies was a mongrel lot, showing spaniel traces, and all of them had to be destroyed. Then, as to horses. Mr. Bruce said that Dr. Warfield, the breeder of Lexington, had had thoroughbred mares served by Jacks for the producing of mules, and later had got winning colts from the same mares by Thoroughbred stallions. It is an interesting matter with breeders and by no means settled. But Mr. Huntington did not want to take any chances in making this new venture, so he sought and obtained virgin mares, that the progeny might not be tainted with other than the blood of the sires.

Mr. Huntington also holds to the theory that when breeding with homogeneous blood that the degree of consanguinity between sire and dam may be very much closer than is the usual practice. In other words, he is an advocate of inbreeding so long as the experiments be not between horses of heterogeneous and unmixable blood. Under the latter circumstances he thoroughly agrees with the rest of the world that the mongrelization of the product is increased. Indeed, it can be increased in no way more surely, for the prevailing characteristics of an animal type are increased by inbreeding and when the animals are mongrels to begin with, that which is bad in them becomes more and more exaggerated in the offspring. Mr. Huntington has been a breeder and a writer on breeding for more than half a century. In a controversy he is, what may be called, without any offense to him, I am sure, decidedly militant. It has, therefore, been the case that not unfrequently his discussions as to the breeding of horses have been fast and furious. If I disagreed with him in his conclusions I should refrain from saying this—indeed, I should not remark his personal characteristics at all. But I feel that the misrepresentations to which he has been subjected should be spoken of, for they have been cruel and continuous, and have done great injustice to one of the most sincere, most honest and most capable horse breeders who has ever lived and worked in this country. Moreover, he has had more than a due share of misfortune in one way and another.

When he had got well along with his experiments with the Clay mares and the Grant stallions, and proved to his own satisfaction and that, also, of many of the friends who were observing his operations, it was considered desirable to enlarge the plant. There were few sales, for the obviously wise course was to keep the collection together for observation and until the type sought after should be fixed and reproducing. So more capital was taken in, and a man considered one of the chief financial lawyers of New York, organized a company and became its treasurer. In a year or so this lawyer was apprehended in some of the most far reaching financial rascalities ever perpetrated in the metropolis. He ruined estates in his charge, and corporations with which he was connected. Mr. Huntington’s horse-breeding company among the others. Here was a blow. The collection had to be dispersed just as it had arrived at success. Though at that time Mr. Huntington was an old man, he did not give up. He bought what of the collection he could, and started in again. His second attempt proves that he is entirely right, as he produces with an absolute certainty two classes of as admirable horses as I have ever seen. The first, and the one that ought to be most useful, is represented in the illustration in this book of Clay-Kismet, and the other by Nimrod. Clay-Kismet is 16½ hands high, and is as perfectly adapted for a carriage horse as any I have seen—as well adapted even as the Golddust, of which I spoke in the Morgan chapter. His symmetry, finish and high breeding adapt him particularly for this, while the cleanness of his action gives a final perfection that cannot fail to excite admiration in those who know and love horses. He is by an Arab stallion 15 hands in stature, out of a closely inbred Clay mare, the union resulting in a horse larger than either sire or dam. It is a singular thing that even the purely bred Arabs, mated by Mr. Huntington and bred on his place, increase very much in size and action. For instance, Khaled, when I last saw him was 15.3½ hands, which is something like a hand taller than either Naomi, his dam, or Nimr, his sire. Here was an interesting instance of inbreeding, as Naomi was the grandam of Nimr, the sire of Khaled. Whether this increase in size was due to inbreeding or to transplantation to a different climate than the desert, with different and better food, I am not prepared to say. But it is a striking change for the better. The other horse I alluded to is Nimrod, now, I am sorry to say, in the Philippines; he is more of a pony or cob type—something, indeed, like the earlier generations of Morgans, this type is most admirable in light harness, or to use in the stud in the creation of polo ponies. This horse was sired by Abdul Hamid II, son of General Grant’s Leopard out of Mary Sheppard, an inbred Clay mare.

These Clay-Arabians are as remarkable for their intelligence and docility as are the Morgans. Their action is as clean and elegant and their bottom cannot be surpassed. If this double accomplishment of a single private owner be suffered to be wasted it will be a pity indeed, as well as a national reproach.