PREFACE xi 



period, and it is not difficult to understand why they 

 were so prized by our ancestors. 



Endurance and docility were the great essentials 

 in the horses they sought to produce for hunting 

 for ordinary use as saddle-horses, and as pack- 

 horses to travel on narrow ways when roads did not 

 exist in England. These essential qualities are still 

 to be found in their highest perfection in horses of 

 Eastern blood. 



Until the time of King Charles II. (1660- 1685), 

 our racehorses (light horses) had not been graded 

 into a distinct breed. This we learn from the 

 writings of, among others, Richard Blome, whose 

 work, ' The Gentleman's Recreation,' was published 

 in 1686. Blome's advice to those who desired to 

 breed racehorses, hunters, and road-horses is to 

 choose a Turk, Barb, or Spaniard (all horses of 

 Eastern blood) as the stallion, and to select the 

 mare according to her shape and make, with an eye 

 to the work for which the foal might be intended. 



Our forefathers had no Stud- Book to guide them 

 i n their choice of stallion and mare ; they were 

 guided by their own judgment, and the pedigree of 

 the stallion or mare could have weighed little or 

 nothing with them — certainly nothing in the case of 

 the sire, for they could have had no means of learn- 

 ing more of his pedigree beyond the fact that he 

 was truly an Eastern horse. 



The Byerly Turk, imported in 1689, was Captain 

 Byerly's charger. He proved a most successful 



