AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL

Although the American Standardbred officially became a breed in 1879, when registry requirements were established by the National Association of Trotting Horse Breeders, the processes that coalesced to produce this uniquely American creation were well under way more than a decade earlier.

The exciting and unusual 1867 match race between two harness champions, the Morgan Ethan Allen and his Hambletonian-bred rival Dexter, stands as a turning point in history. And the same year saw the publication of the definitive edition of Wallace’s American Stud-Book, an exhaustive and accurate compilation of the pedigrees and relationships of American-bred horses which devotes many pages to harness racers, both trotters and pacers.

Indeed, the “official” beginning of any breed is rarely reflective of its actual origins—something devoted readers have surely learned through studies which we have already made of the Arabian, Morgan, Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse and other breeds. Dexter’s sire, Rysdyk’s Hambletonian, is considered to be the foundational stallion of the American Standardbred, and although certain other horses were also influential early on, it is to this stallion that every American Standardbred traces in sire-line ancestry today.

Rysdyk’s Hambletonian was by all measures an unusual horse: unusual in his athletic capability with an above-average turn of speed; unusual in conformation; and unusual in terms of his own breeding. Hambletonian’s sire-line ancestry is Thoroughbred, and our next installment will examine Thoroughbreds important in his pedigree and in the general development of the American Standardbred. But there is much more than Thoroughbred in Hambletonian’s diverse background, and in this article we look at several non-Thoroughbred strains that today are almost totally forgotten components of American horse breeding. Through his ancestor Bellfounder, Hambletonian brings in bloodlines originating in England and on the European continent that would today be called “warmbloods.” With these his pedigree blends Canadian and certain strains of “Asil” or purebred Arabian.

RISING TO THE TROT

Horses whose primary gait is the trot were not favored for under-saddle use until Napoleon Bonaparte made them fashionable in the first decade of the 19th century, yet English breeds known for trotting date much farther back. In the mid-16th century, King Henry VIII mandated that the wealthy keep them for breeding—not because of their gait, but because they were larger and stouter