Most observers agree that horses can't talk; the folklore of the horse is thus borne in the main by horsemen. No American has embodied that term more fully than a Maryland horseman of the early nineteenth century, John Stuart Skinner.

Like many another Maryland gentleman, Skinner loved field sports; he is said to have ridden in the "first flight" with the Baltimore and the Washington City Hounds. His mounts were Thoroughbreds, and his memory is honored primarily by those who breed and race the blood horse. Yet Skinner's own interests ranged across the spectrum of horse breeds and uses. His special field of endeavor, as a matter of fact was the breeding of mules.

Born on a Western Shore plantation in 1788, J. S. Skinner rose rapidly through a series of public-service positions to become Postmaster of Baltimore at the age of twenty-eight. Although he held this post for twenty-one years, and was an Assistant Postmaster General of the United States for another four, Skinner's reputation nationally and internationally rested on his publications on agriculture.