8z THE HORSE. 
cart-horse. No thorough-bred horse would try again and again at a dead 
pull like many of our best breeds of cart-horses ; and therefore he is little 
calculated for work which requires this slow struggling kind of exertion. 
The pull of the Eastern horse, or his descendant, is a snatch ; and though 
it may to a certain extent be modified by use, yet it can never be brought 
up to the standard of the English cart-horse, even if the weight of carcase 
and size and strength of limb of the former could be sufficiently increased. 
ESSENTIALS IN THE THOROUGHBRED. 
SUCH THEN ARE THE GENERAL QUALITIES of the thorough-bred horse 
and the purposes to which he can be beneficially applied. It remains 
now to consider the formation and specific characteristics best adapted 
to the turf, which is his chief arena; and also to the hunting-field, 
which now absorbs a very large number of his breed. Finally, it 
will be necessary to consider him as a means of improving other breeds, 
such as the cavalry-charger, hack and harness horse, but these subjects 
will fall under the respective heads here mentioned. 
PURITY OF BLOOD: 
IN THE FIRST PLACE PURITY OF BLOOD must be considered as a sine gud 
non, for without it a horse cannot be considered thoroughbred, and there- 
fore we have only to ascertain the exact meaning of the term “blood.” 
It is not to be supposed that there is any real difference between the blood 
of the thoroughbred horse, and that of the half-bred animal; no one 
could discriminate between the two by any known means; the term 
“blood” is here synonymous with breed, and by purity of blood is meant 
purity in the breeding of the individual animal under consideration ; that 
is to say, that the horse which is entirely bred from one source is pure 
from any mixture with any other, and may be a pure Suffolk Punch, or a 
pure Clydesdale, or a pure thoroughbred horse. But all these terms are 
comparative, since there is no such animal as a perfectly purely bred horse 
of any breed, whether cart-horse, hack, or race-horse ; all have been pro- 
duced from an admixture with other kinds, and though now kept as pure 
as possible, yet they were originally compounded from varying elements ; 
and thus the race-horse of 1700, was obtained from a mixture of Turks, 
Arabs, and Barbs. Even the best and purest thoroughbreds are stained 
with some slight cross with the old English or Spanish horse, as [have 
shown at page 54, and therefore it is only by comparison that the word 
pure is applicable to them or any others. But since the thoroughbred 
horse, as he is called, has long been bred for the race course, and selec- 
tions have been made with that view alone, it is reasonable to suppose 
that this breed is the best for that purpose, and that a stain of any other 
is a deviation from the clearest stream into one more muddy, and there- 
fore impure ; the consequence is, that the animal bred from the impure 
source fails in some of the essential characteristics of the pure breed, and 
is in so far useless for this particular object. Now, in practice this is 
found to be the case, for in every instance it has resulted that the horse 
bred with the slightest deviation from the sources indicated by the stud- 
book, is unable to compete in lasting power with those which are entirely 
of pure blood. Hence it is established as a rule, that for racing purposes 
every horse must be thorough-bred ; that is, as I have already explained, 
descended from asire and dam whose names are met with in the stud-book. 
