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9fl1 



diate descendants of English stock, raced fairly. These facts appear to 

 ciemonstrate how and why, the Race-horse has been confined exclusively 

 to this country. 



Nevertheless, they are, or rather have been, accustomed to keep 

 running Horses, such as they were, in some parts of Germany, as the 

 following anecdote will shew, which was related to me by the late Ro- 

 bert Bloss, training-groom of Epsom. Many years since, Bloss attend- 

 ing a Horse at Aylesbury, was informed of a Kill-devil foreign racer, 

 belonging to a German baron, that having distanced all the Horses in 

 his own country, was sent over, on the happy speculation of his beating 

 all England. He was entered to run for the fifty-pound |)late, and the 

 reporters in his favour were so loud and sanguine, that the faith of the 

 grooms in their English Horses, actually began to be staggered. Bloss, 

 however, who knew something of a racer, was not, for a moment, at a 

 loss, when he saw the famous foreigner stripped. To complete the joke, 

 the Horse was jockied by a man from his own country, who rode with 

 '^ a whip having a thong, and a sharp spike at the extremity ; every body 

 saw this Horse and jockey start, but very few where or how he came 

 in. He was lost, long before two miles out of four were run over. By 

 the description, I supposed this Horse to have been a Hungarian. 



Bloss, at the same time, related to me, how he won his little money upon 

 Brilliant. He rode Brilliant exercise, when that Horse and Matchem 

 met at Newmarket. Being out with his Horse very early one morning, 

 he heard another brushing along very fast behind him. He waited ; 

 it proved to be Matchem, and loosing his own Horse, he found he could 

 outfoot Matchem with considerable ease. Whether this rencontre was 

 really accidental, or a contrived accident between young Yorkshire and 

 Young Norfolk, I submit to the decision of the honourable fraternity of 

 racing grooms. 



We must proceed on the hypothesis, since we can discover no other 

 so well grounded in experience and fact, that the wild Horses of the 

 deserts and mountains of Arabia and Barbary are the originals from 

 which our purest and best racing blood has proceeded, thence such 

 is our object, should any necessity appear of farther importation, of 

 which, indeed, there is no present sign. But by what tokens are we 



previously 



