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CHAPTER V.
THE ENGLISH RACE HORSE.

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The real origin of the English race horse in confusion—Full list of the “foundation stock” as given by Mr. Weatherby one hundred years ago—The list complete and embraces all of any note—Admiral Rous’ extravaganza—Godolphin Arabian’s origin wholly unknown—His history—Successful search for his true portrait—Stubbs’ picture a caricature—The true portrait alone supplies all that is known of his origin and blood.

The English Race Horse is the great central figure of all the horse literature of the past two hundred years. Much has been claimed for him and much has been written about him, in a haphazard way, by people who know but little of the subject. A few men of independent and real thought have written on this subject, but they have devoted their attention to the comparing of family with family or individual with individual. Of the books that have been written by brainless people on the English horse there is no end, and they are generally mere repetitions, without giving credit, of what somebody has said before. Among all the books that have been written on this subject I have never yet found one that even pretended to make a serious attempt at discovering the real origin of the English Race Horse. They all seem to agree with Admiral Rous that he is purely descended from the Arabian horse, and without one drop of the blood of the indigenous English horse. The average writer for the two past centuries has been content with just this much knowledge, and he wants nothing more. Occasionally it is modestly suggested in some magazine article that this exclusively Arabian origin may not be true, and I am glad to note that these suggestions are becoming more frequent of late years. It has been claimed that the pure Arabian origin of the race horse “is as solid as a pyramid,” all of which may be accepted—but, unfortunately for the claimant, the “pyramid” is standing on its apex, and when the facts breathe upon it, as gently as a zephyr, it will topple over. The most convenient and the most authoritative collection of facts relating to the earliest exotic horses that were brought in is to be found in the English Stud Book itself, and as but few of my readers have access to this work, I will copy that portion of it entire, as it appears in the first volume, and the edition of 1803. In the edition of 1808 the list was reprinted with four additional animals and some verbal changes, which, when important, will be noted.

“ARABIANS, BARBS AND TURKS.”

1. The Helmsley Turk was an old Duke of Buckingham’s and got Bustler, etc.

2. Place’s White Turk was the property of Mr. Place, studmaster to Oliver Cromwell, when Protector, and was the sire of Wormwood Commoner, and the great grandams of Windham, Grey Ramsden and Cartouch.

3. Royal Mares: King Charles the Second sent abroad the master of the horse, to procure a number of foreign horses and mares for breeding, and the mares brought over by him (as also many of their produce) have since been called Royal Mares.

4. Dodsworth, though foaled in England, was a natural Barb. His dam, a Barb mare, was imported in the time of Charles the Second, and was called a Royal Mare. She was sold by the studmaster, after the king’s death, for forty guineas, at twenty years old, when in foal (by the Helmsley Turk) with Vixen, dam of the Old Child Mare.

5. The Stradling or Lister Turk was brought into England by the Duke of Berwick, from the siege of Buda, in the reign of James the Second. He got Snake, the D. of Kingston’s Brisk and Piping Peg, Coneyskins, the dam of Hip, and the grandam of Bolton Sweepstakes.

6. The Byerly Turk was Captain Byerly’s charger in Ireland, in King William’s wars (1869, etc.). He did not cover many bred mares, but was the sire of D. of Kingston’s Sprite, who was thought nearly as good as Leedes; the D. of Rutland’s Black Hearty and Archer, and the D. of Devonshire’s Basto, Ld. Bristol’s Grasshopper, and Ld. Godolphin’s Byerly Gelding, all in good forms: Halloway’s Jigg, a middling horse; and Knightley’s Mare, in a very good form.

7. Greyhound. The cover of this foal was in Barbary, after which both his sire and dam were purchased, and brought into England by Mr. Marshall. He was got by King William’s White Barb Chillaby, out of Slugey, a natural Barb Mare. Greyhound got the D. of Wharton’s Othello, said to have beat Chanter easily in a trial, giving him a stone, but who, falling lame, ran only one match in public, against a bad horse; he also got Panton’s Whitefoot, a very good horse; Osmyn, a very fleet horse and in good form for his size; the D. of Wharton’s Rake, a middling horse; Ld. Halifax’s Sampson, Goliah and Favorite, pretty good 12-stone Plate horses; Desdemona, and other good mares, and several ordinary Plate horses, who ran in the North where he was a common stallion and covered many of the best mares.

8. The D’Arcy White Turk was the sire of Old Hautboy, Grey Royal, Cannon, etc.

9. The D’Arcy Yellow Turk was the sire of Spanker, Brimmer, and the great-great-grandam of Cartouch.

10. The Marshall or Selaby Turk was the property of Mr. Marshall’s brother, studmaster to King William, Queen Anne, and King George the first. He got the Curwen Old Spot, the dam of Windham, the dam of Derby Ticklepitcher, and great-grandam of Bolton Sloven and Fearnought.

11. Curwen’s Bay Barb was a present to Louis the Fourteenth from Muley Ishmael, King of Morocco, and was brought into England by Mr. Curwen, who being in France when Count Byram and Count Thoulouse (two natural sons of Louis the Fourteenth) were, the former, master of the horse, and the latter an admiral, he procured of them two Barb horses, both of which proved excellent stallions, and were well known by the names of the Curwen Bay Barb and the Thoulouse Barb. Curwen’s Bay Barb got Mixbury and Tantivy, both very excellent formed Galloways. The first of them was only thirteen hands two inches high, and yet there were not more than two horses of his time that could beat him at light weights. Brocklesby, Little George, Yellow Jack, Bay Jack, Monkey, Dangerfield, Hip, Peacock, and Flatface, the first two in good forms, the rest middling; two Mixburys, full brothers to the first Mixbury, middling Galloways; Long Meg, Brocklesby Betty, and Creeping Molly, extraordinarily high-formed mares; Whiteneck, Mistake, Sparkler, and Lightfoot, very good mares, and several middling Galloways, who ran for Plates in the North. He got two full sisters to Mixbury, one of which bred Partner, Little Scar, Soreheels and the dam of Crab; the other was the dam of Quiet, Silver Eye and Hazard. He did not cover many mares except Mr. Curwen’s and Mr. Pelham’s.

12. The Thoulouse Barb became afterward the property of Sir J. Parsons and was the sire of Bagpiper, Blacklegs, Mr. Panton’s Molly, and the dam of Cinnamon.

13. Darley’s Arabian was brought over by a brother of Mr. Darley, of Yorkshire, who, being an agent in merchandise abroad, became member of a hunting club, by which means he acquired interest to procure this horse. He was the sire of Childers, and also got Almanzor, a very good horse; a white-legged horse of the D. of Somerset’s, full brother to Almanzor, and thought to be as good, but meeting with an accident, he never ran in public; Cupid and Brisk, good horses; Dædalus, a very swift horse; Dart, Shipjack, Maica and Aleppo, good Plate horses, though out of bad mares; Ld. Lonsdale’s Mare in very good form, and Ld. Tracy’s Mare in a good one for Plates. He covered very few mares except Mr. Darley’s, who had very few well-bred mares besides Almanzor’s Dam.

14. Sir J. William’s Turk (more commonly called the Honeywood Arabian) got Mr. Honeywood’s two True Blues; the elder of them was the best Plate horse in England, for four or five years; the younger was in very high form and got the Rumford Gelding, and Ld. Onslow’s Grey Horse, middling horses out of road mares. It is not known that this Turk covered any bred mares except the dam of the two True Blues.

15. The Belgrade Turk was taken at the siege of Belgrade, by Gen. Merci, and sent by him to the Prince de Craon, from whom he was a present to the Prince of Lorraine. He was afterward purchased by Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, and died in his possession about 1740.

16. Croft’s Bay Barb was got by Chillaby, out of the Moonah Barb Mare.

17. The Godolphin Arabian was imported by Mr. Coke, at whose death he became (together with Cade, Regulus, etc., then young) the property of Ld. Godolphin. His first employment was that of a teaser to Hobgoblin, who, refusing to cover Roxana, she was put to the Arabian, and from that cover produced Lath, the first of his get. He was also sire of Cade, Regulus, Blank, etc., and what is considered very remarkable, as well as a strong proof of his excellence as a stallion, there is not a superior horse now on the turf without a cross of the Godolphin Arabian, neither has there been for several years past. He was a brown bay, with no white, except on the off heel behind, and about fifteen hands high (a picture of him is in the library at Gog Magog, Cambridgeshire). It is not known to what particular race of the Arab breed, indeed it has been asserted that he was a Barb. He died at Gog Magog in 1753, in or about the 29th year of his age. The story of his playfellow, the black cat, must not be omitted here, especially as an erroneous account has got abroad, copied from the first introduction to the present work. Instead of his grieving for the loss of the cat she survived him, though but for a short time; she sat upon him after he was dead in the building erected for him, and followed him to the place where he was buried under a gateway near the running stable; sat upon him there till he was buried, then went away, and never was seen again, till found dead in the hayloft.

18. The Cullen Arabian was brought over by Mr. Nosco and was sire of Mr. Warren’s Camillus, Ld. Orford’s Matron, Mr. Gorges’ Sour Face, the dam of Regulator, etc., etc.

19. The Coomb Arabian (sometimes called the Pigot Arabian and sometimes the Bolingbroke Grey Arabian) was the sire of Methodist, the dam of Crop, etc., etc.

20. The Compton Barb, more commonly called the Sedley Arabian, was sire of Coquette, Greyling, etc.

(Additions in 1808 Edition.)

21. King James the First bought an Arabian of Mr. Markham, a merchant, for 500gs., said (but with little probability) to have been the first of the breed ever seen in England. The Duke of Newcastle says, in his treatise on Horsemanship, that he had seen the above Arabian, and describes him as a small bay horse, and not of very excellent shape.

23. Bloody Buttocks; nothing further can be traced from the papers of the late Mr. Crofts than that he was a grey Arabian, with a red mark on his hip, from whence he derived his name.

23. The Vernon Arabian was a small chestnut horse. He covered at Highflyer Hall, and was the sire of Alert, etc. Alert had good speed for a short distance.

24 & 25. The Wellesley Grey, and Chestnut Arabians (so called) were brought from the East, but evidently not Arabians. The former was a horse of good shape, with the size and substance of an English hunter.

This list of twenty-seven different animals, which for the sake of convenience I have numbered, was presented to the public more than a hundred years ago by Mr. Weatherby, the highest of all English authorities, as the foundation stock from which the English race horse was propagated. The uniform omission of dates of importations, etc., discloses the fact that the compiler had no accurate knowledge of the animals or their history, and that he was dependent largely upon very uncertain traditions for his information. It must not be understood that the animals in this list were contemporaneous, or that the list embraces all the foreign animals that were brought in, but only those that were recognized as of value in founding the breed.

To understand just what we have to consider, I will place here, in juxtaposition to the above list, the remark of Admiral Rous, at one time the great race-horse authority of England, which expresses the popular opinion as to the origin of the race horse, that is practically universally held in all lands. The admiral says: “The British race horse is a pure Eastern exotic whose pedigree may be traced two thousand years, the true son of Arabia Deserta, without a drop of English blood.” To reach the approximate truth on the issue here made, and to puncture this extravaganza is the work now before us.

Numbers 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, were Turks, and to these we may add Mr. Darley’s horse, known as the Darley Arabian, number 13, for he was brought from Aleppo in Turkey, far removed from Arabia, and famous for the great numbers and excellence of its horses many centuries before Arabia had any horses. To carry horses, for sale, from the deserts of Arabia, where they are scarce, to the region of Aleppo, where they are very plenty, and of the highest quality, would be simply “carrying coals to Newcastle.” We may therefore safely conclude that the ten horses here enumerated were Turks.

Numbers 4, 7, 11, 12, 16, 20 were Barbs, as they are named in the list. It is a surprise to me that these six horses should be designated as “Barbs,” for it has been the usage of many generations to call these horses “Arabians.” As late as 1819 the Dey of Algiers sent several Algerine horses as a present to the Prince Regent of England, and they were always spoken of as “Arabians.”

Numbers 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 are all unsatisfactory as to their origin. Number 17—Lord Godolphin’s horse—is wholly unknown as to his blood elements, and further on his history will be considered. Number 18 “was brought over,” but from whence nobody knows. Number 19 is in the same condition, and not one of his different owners has been able to tell us anything about his origin. Number 21 was, possibly, an Arabian, but the Duke of Newcastle, who knew the horse well, seems to have doubted his genuineness on account of his inferiority. However this may have been, he preceded other importations so many years that it is not known that he ever sired a colt, and as a progenitor we may as well strike him out. Number 22 seems to be in darkness, and all efforts to find his origin having failed he may as well be classed as unknown. Number 23 is furnished with no evidence that he was entitled to be classed as an Arabian. Numbers 24 and 25 were confessedly not genuine.

This reduces the analysis to its lowest form and shows that in the original foundation stock, including Mr. Darley’s horse (13), there were ten Turks and six Barbs that can be accepted with reasonable certainty. This leaves eight so-called “Arabians,” from which we must eliminate numbers 17, 21, 24, 25, leaving numbers 18, 19, 22, 23, without any evidence whatever that they were Arabians except in name. From these four rather obscure animals, therefore, according to the Rous dictum, the English race horse must have derived every drop of his blood; and yet there is not a scintilla of evidence either direct or inferential that any one of them, or the ancestors of any one of them, ever saw Arabia. From the custom of calling every horse from abroad an “Arabian,” that has prevailed in England for more than two hundred years, it is fair to conclude that there was no Arabian blood in the foundation stock. It was the blood of the Turks and the Barbs, commingled with that of the native blood that had been bred to race for centuries, that furnished the foundation of the modern English and American race horse.

Blood in the race horse is an imperative necessity, but it must be blood that has been carefully selected from winners, and raced for generations, or it is of no value as an element of speed. If the English race horse had been a strictly pure exotic from Arabia Deserta, as Admiral Rous maintained, he would have been of no value either as a race horse or the progenitor of race horses, without many generations of careful selection and development of speed.

The Godolphin Arabian was altogether the greatest horse of his century. He flourished during most of the reign of King George II., but the horsemen of the world, even Englishmen themselves, know far more about him than they do about the reign of that monarch. Still, nobody knows anything of his birthplace, his origin or his blood. He was to the English race horse what Rysdyk’s Hambletonian has been to the American trotter. Neither of them was ever in a race, but each of them stood immeasurably superior to all others of his day as a progenitor of speed, at his own gait. From the latter we had reason to expect speed because we knew he inherited speed, but from the former we had no reason to expect anything, for we knew nothing of what he inherited until he proved his inheritance by what he transmitted to his progeny. Some of the principal semi-tragic incidents, so far as known in the early life of Godolphin Arabian, were seized upon by the great novelist Eugene Sue, and out of them grew a “horse novel” from his gifted pen. The horse was foaled about 1724, was brought to England from France about 1730, and died at Magog Hills, 1753. There seems to be a substantial agreement among those who had the best opportunities to know that the horse was employed on the streets of Paris as a common drudge in a cart and driven by a brutal master. A Mr. Coke, who is represented to have been a Quaker, was in Paris on business and he happened to witness the brutality of the ruffian who was this horse’s master in trying to make him draw a load of wood up a steep acclivity on to a new bridge, which the horse after repeated trials and clubbings was unable to accomplish. To relieve the poor brute from his sufferings, Mr. Coke’s feelings of humanity asserted themselves, and he stepped forward and bought the horse on the spot and had him released from the cart. Mr. Coke, it is said, brought the horse to London and presented him to Mr. Williams, the proprietor of a famous coffee-house, and Mr. Williams presented him to Earl Godolphin.

In September, 1829, Mr. John S. Skinner commenced the publication of the first horse magazine that ever appeared in this country, and in the first number there appeared a steel engraving purporting to be executed by the famous Stubbs and to represent the great horse, Godolphin Arabian. Not many years afterward I came into possession of a copy of this publication from the beginning, and the sight of this picture always impressed me as the most ludicrous abortion of the likeness of a horse that could be conceived of. The neck was absolutely longer than the body, the legs were about strong enough for a sheep, and all over it lacked strength of both muscle and bone to a most absurd extent. When this picture appeared in London, some years before, it was laughed at by all artists as well as by all men who knew anything about the shape of a horse, as a monstrosity, and it was received in the same spirit on this side of the water; but it bore the name of a great artist and that was sufficient to secure the approbation of the unthinking and the unknowing. The only key to the origin of the horse, the only pedigree that can be given, must be found written in his own structure of bone and muscle and brain. A true delineation, therefore, of his form and shape became a matter of the highest moment, not merely to satisfy the curiosity of the curious, but as a study of the true sources of his wonderful prepotency.

Sixty-five years ago a correspondent of Mr. Skinner’s magazine, referred to above, and a descendant of Mr. Samuel Galloway of Maryland, spoke of an oil painting of Godolphin Arabian that had hung in the hall at Tulip Hill from the days of his childhood as still hanging there, and said that it was wholly unlike the Stubbs engraving. Mr. Galloway was one of Maryland’s land barons, an enthusiastic horse breeder, and a successful horse racer. He was educated at Cambridge, I think; and if so, no doubt he saw Godolphin Arabian many times before he died, for he was within four or five miles of him, and his sporting instincts could not fail to take him to see so great a horse when so near at hand. As he was a young man of great wealth and great ambitions, it is quite probable he was on terms of friendly acquaintance, if not intimacy, with Lord Godolphin, and thus secured the oil painting from that distinguished friend himself. This theory is strengthened by the fact that the picture still bears the coat of arms of Lord Godolphin.

To reach and secure this picture, or at least a faithful copy of it, became an object of continuous effort that was never intermitted for more than twenty years. At last, in the spring of 1877, one of the correspondents of Wallace’s Monthly, Prof. M. C. Ellzey, of Blacksburg, Virginia, wrote me that the picture was then the property of Dr. J. H. Murray (whose wife was a lineal descendant of Mr. Galloway) of Cedar Park, adjoining Tulip Hill, West River, Maryland, and that he would have the picture sent to me. In a few days it arrived, and when my eyes rested upon it, it was like the feast of a lifetime; for there was all that could ever be known of the greatest horse of his century. The painting was in a state of excellent preservation and the coat of arms of Lord Godolphin was plainly traceable. The horse is shown from his right side, in his rough, paddock condition, with his right hind foot a little advanced, and his head low and without any animation or excitement. The standpoint of the artist is a little forward of the shoulders, and he must have been a tall man or the horse must have been a low horse, or perhaps both, for he sees over the horse and portrays the fine spring of muscle over the loin, on the opposite side of the vertebra. From the position of the artist the drawing is slightly foreshortened, and this, together with the advance of his right hind foot, intensifies the droop of the rump, to some degree, in the outline. From the proportions, as shown in the painting, I would conclude he was below fourteen and a half hands high rather than above it. His head is striking and unusually large for an animal of his size, with remarkable width between the eyes, and without a star to lighten it up. His ear is not fine, and it droops backward as he stands, as if half-asleep. His mane is sparse and in disorder. His throat-latch is very good, and the windpipe large and well developed. The neck is of a fair length for a horse of his blocky formation, and there is nothing unusual about it except its great depth at the collar place. The slope of the shoulder is very marked and shows his ability to carry his head in the air when he wished to do so, but the shoulder itself is coarse and angular to an unusual degree. His withers rise very abruptly and there is great perpendicular depth through the carcass at this point. His back is remarkably short and the spread and arch of his loins is simply magnificent. But the point of superlative excellence is in the remarkable development of power in his quarters. His limbs, instead of being “spider legs,” are unusually strong for an animal of his size; indeed, they might be considered coarse for any horse that was pretended to be a race horse. His tail is of the usual weight and somewhat wavy. With the addition that there is a little white at the coronet of the right hind foot, and not forgetting his friend and companion the cat, I have made a somewhat detailed description of what is represented in the painting. Several artists examined the picture, and they pronounced it the work of an artist of ability and experience. The signature “D. M. pinxt” was carefully examined, but no one was able to throw any light upon the name represented by the initial letters “D. M.”

While this painting contained within itself evidence of its great value as a likeness of its subject, it lacked confirmation as “true to the life;” and nothing could supply this lack but to find a portrait of the same horse, painted by another artist, and then if the two agreed, the proof would be fully satisfying to the understanding. A little over a hundred years ago Lord Francis Godolphin Osborne, Duke of Leeds, and heir to Lord Godolphin, wrote Sir Charles Bunbury, a great race-horse man, that he had a painting of Godolphin Arabian, by Wootton, at Gog Magog Hills. Over sixty years ago an American gentleman wrote to Mr. Skinner’s magazine that he had seen a painting of Godolphin Arabian hanging in Houghton Hall, Norfolk. In 1878 my physician told me I must quit work for awhile, and that I had better visit the great Exposition at Paris that year. I was anxious to see the Fair, but I was a great deal more anxious to see those two paintings of Godolphin Arabian, if they were still in existence. Gog Magog Hills is a quaint old place, and the origin and meaning of its name is lost in a very remote antiquity. As it has not been the residence of its owners for more than a hundred years, it is much neglected. The people in charge were very obliging, and I was immediately admitted to the view of Wootton’s painting of Godolphin Arabian. The first glance was a complete vindication of the truthfulness of the Maryland painting as a true likeness in every important feature of the outline and proportions. The canvas is about four and a half by four feet, inclosed in a massive frame. After studying it and comparing it, point by point for more than an hour, with a copy of the Maryland painting, it became evident they were not painted by the same hand, although the horse had the same position in both pictures, with the exception that the right hind foot was thrown backward in the Wootton painting instead of forward, and thus gave a less abrupt droop of the rump. The head was precisely the same shape, but in the large painting the articulations were less distinct and expressive.

After a little peregrination through Norfolk, studying the “Norfolk Trotter” as then called, but since called “Hackney,” on his “native heath,” I reached Houghton Hall, in Norfolk. This grand old place was built over a hundred and sixty years ago by the famous Sir Robert Walpole, and at that time it was considered the most splendid structure, as a gentleman’s country seat, in all England. For many years it has been the property of the Marquis of Cholmondeley, but is not often occupied as a residence. Here too, I was lucky, for upon my entrance to the picture gallery, about the first object upon which my eye rested was the painting of the Godolphin Arabian, and the first impression was that there must be “spooks” around, for that seemed certainly the Maryland picture I was looking at. I had it taken down and removed to a good light, and there the whole mystery was removed. It is difficult to compare two peas. All you can say about them is that they were just alike, and that is all I can say about the Galloway picture in Maryland and the Houghton Hall picture in England. The paintings were the same size, and the pigments used were of precisely the same shades of color and quality. The colors were peculiar in the fact that the artist had used no varnish nor oil that would leave a shiny appearance. The Houghton Hall picture had a black, glossy margin all around it of about five inches in width on which the names of the most noted of his progeny were inscribed in gold letters, and at the bottom was this inscription: “The original picture taken at The Hills, by D. Murrier, painter to H. R. H. the Duke of Cumberland.” This explained the modest signature attached to the Maryland picture, which was a replica of the original. “The Hills” is the local designation of “Gog Magog Hills.” The word “original” not only implies that the picture was made from life, but that one or more replicas were made at the same time.

Here, then, in this picture, we have all that we know or probably ever will know of the origin and pedigree of this horse. It does not tell us what he was, but it does tell us in the most clear and unmistakable language what he was not. There is no feature nor element in his make-up that does not say that he was neither an Arabian nor a Barb. He was a stout, strong-boned, heavily muscled, short-legged horse. In his form and shape he was very far removed from an ideal progenitor of race horses, but he was that progenitor all the same. About forty years after his death Mr. Stubbs, who never saw the horse, brought out a painting of him which all artists laughed at as the picture of an impossible horse. This picture, however, was engraved on steel and became the standard representation of Godolphin Arabian, in England, till this day. Both these pictures are here given, and a comparison of many points makes it evident that Stubbs copied from the original of Murrier or from the painting by Wootton, which was probably also a copy of Murrier, and he followed his copy just as closely as he could while converting a big-boned, stout saddle horse into a long-necked, spindle-shanked race horse. By actual measurement the neck is longer than the body, but it is not necessary to point out the Stubbs absurdities, as they are apparent to every eye. It was simply an awkward and dishonest attempt to express in his form and shape such a pedigree as a great racing sire should have had. In these two pictures we have the real and the imaginary—the honest and the dishonest.

The search for this picture and then for its verification was a labor of many years. I never expected to find the horse’s origin, but the discovery of his likeness seemed to be in the bounds of a possibility that was finally realized. Murrier’s picture, as a mere work of art, is of no mean value. It contains within itself undoubted evidence that it is a true picture of a horse, and it is shown circumstantially that this horse was the great “unknown and untraced founder” of the English race horse, with nothing of the race horse in his appearance.

The name of this horse has been a misnomer ever since the day he fell into the hands of Lord Godolphin, and it has misled a multitude of men to their financial hurt. Of late years the more intelligent class of writers, instead of calling him an “Arabian” call him a “Barb,” but there is just as much propriety in using one name as the other, and not a scintilla of authority for using either. Whatever may have been his origin, his marvelous structural combination of propelling power supplied what was wanting in the English stock of his day, and gave him success. Since then thousands of Arabians and Barbs have been tried and all of them have failed.

The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development

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