His pedigree has been questioned from the day of his first appearance to the present time, and we have made a very careful study of all the facts at our command. In the first edition of his Stud Book (1803) Mr. Weatherby gives his dam as by Hip; g. d. by Spark, son of Honeycomb Punch; g. g. d. by Snake and out of Lord D’Arcy’s Queen. This has not been materially changed in any of the subsequent editions, and we think it may be taken for granted that the horse was advertised under this pedigree. Mr. Weatherby commenced work on pedigrees in 1791, and avowedly accepted the best information he could get with regard to old pedigrees, regardless of the source. We are not aware that he ever investigated anything outside of his office work, or if he did he never gave the public the benefit of the details of his investigations. John Lawrence commenced work on horse history long before Mr. Weatherby commenced as a compiler of pedigrees, and he was altogether the ablest writer of his day, or perhaps we might add, of any other day. He was a clear and independent thinker and a vigorous writer. In his “History of the Horse in all His Varieties and Uses,” on page 281, he thus discusses the question of Sampson’s pedigree:
“Nobody yet ever did, or ever could assert positively that Jigg was not thoroughbred, but the case is very different with respect to Sampson; since nobody in the sporting world, either of past or present days, ever supposed him so. Nor was the said world at all surprised at Robinson’s people furnishing their stallion with a good and _true_ pedigree, a thing so much to their advantage. Having seen a number of Sampson’s immediate get, those in the Lord Marquis of Rockingham’s stud and others, and all of them, Bay Malton perhaps less than any other, in their _heads_, size and form, having the appearance of being a degree or two deficient in racing blood, I was convinced that the then universal opinion on that point was well grounded. I was (in 1778) an enthusiast, collecting materials for a book on the horse. It happened that I wanted a trusty and steady man for a particular service, and opportunely for the matter now under discussion, a Yorkshire man about threescore years of age was recommended to me, who had recently been employed in certain stables. I soon found that his early life had been spent in the running stables of the North, and that he had known Sampson, whence he was always afterward named by us ‘Old Sampson.’ He was very intelligent on the subject of racing stock and his report was as follows. He took the mare to Blaze, for the cover which produced Sampson, helped to bit and break the colt, rode him in exercise and afterward took him to Malton for his first start, where, before the race, he was ridiculed for bringing a great coach horse to contend against racers. On the sale of Sampson this man left the service of James Preston, Esq., and went with the colt into that of Mr. Robinson. His account of Sampson’s dam was that she appeared about three parts bred, a hunting figure and by report a daughter of Hip, which, however, could not be authenticated; and the fact was then notorious and not disputed in the Yorkshire stables.... Mr. Tattersall lately stowed me a portrait of Sampson in his flesh, in which this defect of blood appears far more obvious than in one which I had of him galloping.”