"Section two of the act provides that no entire horse, being above the age of 

 two years, and not being of the height of fifteen handfuls, shall be put to graze on 

 any common or waste land in certain counties ; anyone was to be at liberty to seize 

 a horse of unlawful height, and those whose duty it was to measure horses, and who 

 refused to do so, were to be fined forty shillings. 



"By Section Six, all forests, chases, commons, etc., were to be 'driven' within 

 fifteen days of Michaelmas day, and all horses, mares, and colts not giving promise 

 of growing into serviceable animals, or of producing them, were to be killed. 



"By another act (27 Henry the Eighth, chapter 6), after stating that the breed 

 of good, strong horses was likely to diminish, it was ordered that the owner of all 

 parks and enclosed grounds of the extent of one mile should keep two mares thirteen 

 hands high for breeding purposes, or, if the extent of the ground was four miles, four 

 mares. The statute was not to extend to the counties of Westmoreland, Cumber- 

 land, Northumberland, or the Bishopric of Durham, which might indicate that horses 

 in those sections were of a better grade." 



Henry took great pains to improve the royal stud. According to Sir Thomas 

 Chaloner, a writer in the reign of Elizabeth, Henry imported horses from Turkey, 

 Naples and Spain. 



Gunpowder, too, was invented, which diminished the weight of the cavalry 

 soldier by the use of a much lighter armor. A quicker and better bred horse be- 

 came much more desirable. The invention of gunpowder and the invention of 

 the carriage revolutionized the horse breeding industry. Hence, by the time 

 James the First came to the throne (1603) the dawn of a new epoch was realized 

 in horse breeding in England designated in thoroughbred running horse history 

 as the second epoch. 



While James the First was exceedingly fond of racing he regarded the best 

 of the English horses of that day as being of little consequence. He gave five 

 hundred guineas for an Arab stallion imported by a Mr. Markham, afterward 

 known as the Markham Arabian, which was the first authentic account of an 

 Arabian in England, as stated by Weatherby's Stud Book. "Brittannica" re- 

 marks concerning this Arabian I give verbatim: 



"The people having to do with horses at that time were as conservative in their 

 notions as most of the grooms are now, and the Markham Arabian was not at all 

 approved of. The Duke of New Castle, in his treatise on horsemanship, said that he 

 had seen the above Arabian, and described him as a small bay horse not of very ex- 

 cellent shape. In this instance, however, prejudice (and it is difficult to believe that 

 it was anything else) was right, for King James' first venture does not appear to 

 have been a success either as a race horse or as a sire, and thus Arabian blood was 

 brought into disrepute." 



It is plain to be seen from the above that the twentieth century is not the 

 only age that was ever afflicted with blind prejudice against the use of Arabian 

 blood in the breeding of high-class horses. Ignorance as to the indispensable 

 value of Arabian blood is, however, very pardonable at a time as early as the 

 beginning of the reign of James the First (1603). While there can be but one 

 cause for prejudice or opposition to that giant blood, the Arabian, in the twen- 

 tieth century, which is commonly called ignorance, or more genteelly expressed 

 as superficial knowledge of horse breeding results in the past, ignorance as to 



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