AND PERSONALITY 



and he states l that it is certain " . . . that all the important 

 horses of today can be traced back to Matchem, Herod, or 

 Eclipse; but in dealing with the origin of the thoroughbred 

 we must take a wider view of the matter, because we know 

 that there were other horses before the Byerley Turk, 

 the Darley Arabian and the Godolphin Barb, who richly 

 deserved some credit for their contributions to the origin 

 of the thoroughbred. 



"While we must give the Eastern sires and some of the 

 Eastern mares their due, we must at the same time bring 

 out the tremendous importance of the contributions derived 

 from the native English mares. In fact, it was the happy com- 

 bination of the Eastern sires and the English native mares 

 that brought into existence a horse that no other country, but 

 Britain and Ireland, was able to produce by the crossing of 

 Eastern sires with mares indigenous to that particular 

 country." 



During the rapid change in the speed and size of this new 

 product, the thoroughbred, no change was seen in the 

 native Arabian or native Barb or native Turk stock in 

 Africa and Asia. Nor was any advance seen in the speed or 

 size among the native stock in the British Isles or in 

 Scandinavia or in France. The only advance made was due 

 to blending the northern stock with the desert stock. Dr. 

 McKay logically accounts for this fact by the principle of 

 mutation as laid down by De Vries. Dr. McKay considers 

 the desert stallion an "elementary species" and the 

 English mare, a "mongrel." Crossing these two stocks 

 would produce great variations in the offspring and might 

 give rise to a new line. This actually occurred. The result 

 was the thoroughbred. 



The zebra, for instance, is bred in the tropics under con- 

 ditions opposite to those for the Shetland pony. The quick 



1 McK.AY, W. J. STEWART, "Evolution of the Endurance Speed and Staying 

 Power of the Race Horse," Hutchinson & Co., Ltd., London, 1932. 



