so much weâll never know. You figure horses started coming over sometime after 1607. Not everyone kept good records.â
âNot everyone could read and write.â Harry paused a moment. âAlthough I read somewhere that our literacy rate was higher at the time of the American Revolution than it is now. Boy, thatâs a smack in the face.â
âDoesnât surprise me.â Joan shrugged. âBut what we do know is that Thoroughbred blood, Morgan blood, and even Old Narragansett blood is in the Saddlebred.â
Narragansett blood is the blood of pacers, a type of racehorse that pulls a sulky. A pacerâs legs, unlike a trotterâs, move in parallel, so the right sideâfore and hindâwill move in unison, as will the left. The movement of the legs for a trotterâin fact, for the trotting gait in any horseâis diagonal.
âWho were the great foundation mares?â Harry asked as she watched a robin swoop down on a wriggling worm.
âUh, Stevenson mare, Saltram mare, Betsey Harrison, Pekina, Lute Boyd, Lucy Mack, Daisy the Second, Queen Forty-eight, and Annie C.â
âYou could teach a class.â
Joan smiled as she poured tea for Harry, coffee for herself. âYou know your Thoroughbred lines, I know Saddlebred. The American Saddlebred Association, ASHA, started in 1891, helped concentrate breeding information.â She paused a second. âBut when you close the books the problems arise.â
âMeaning you run out of blood?â
âYes. Horses, dogs, whatever, can become inbred. I linebreed. Iâm not saying you shouldnât, but you shouldnât even dream of it if you havenât studied and looked at a lot of horsesâa
lot
of horses.â
In linebreeding, one dips back into the same bloodlines, the theory being it reinforces the strong points of that blood. Do it too close and one can breed weak animals or idiotic humans. It takes an incredibly intelligent human to successfully linebreed horses.
âRight.â Harry gratefully drank her tea once Joan sat down. âI shy away from it, but I lack your gift.â
Joan waved off this compliment as they both attacked the coffee cake.
âI should make you a real breakfast, but you know me.â Joan wanly smiled since she never had time nor much inclination to cook.
âIâm the same way. Fair usually brings something home after his last call, and he likes to grill.â
âDonât they all. I mean, have you ever seen anything like men hovering over their barbecue? Theyâre even competitive about the sauces, and if they marinate the meatââ She rolled her eyes heavenward.
âDidnât you say they were just as bad in Australia and even South Africa when you visited there?â
âHoney, theyâre probably attacking one another with tongs in China. Show a man a grill and a piece of steak and he loses his mind.â
âTrue, but we get to eat it.â Harry winked.
âEver notice how weâre cooks but theyâre chefs?â
Both women laughed at that.
âYouâve got a couple of Thoroughbreds.â Harry noticed how moist the crumbs were on top of the coffee cake.
âI do, but I donât breed them. Paula Cline and I run a couple. My older brother Jimmyâs usually got a few on the track, too.â
âIf you hear of a good youngster, good mind, a little too slow, and the owners want out, let me know.â
âI will. For you?â
âMake it into a foxhunter for Alicia Palmer.â
Because Joan knew Harryâs friends, she needed no biography of Alicia. âStill hot and heavy with BoomBoom?â
ââTis.â
âIâd never thought that of BoomBoom, not that I care. She just mowed men down like a scythe.â
âBoth did. That may be why they found each other. They got bored.â Harry laughed.
âOr maybe itâs truly love.â Joan hoped it
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