544 THE HISTORY OF THE HORSE 



grandfathers have told us how their fathers exjjatiated on the merits of 

 those horses, of their size and feats of strength, how the blacks with white 

 legs and blazes were most esteemed. These animals or their descendants in 

 time became located all over England, and thus a good cross of fresh blood 

 found its way to the descendants of the old tournament horse, and procured 

 that increase in size and strength for which our present breed of cart-horses 

 are so celebrated. 



During Elizabeth's reign horse-racing was in vogue, but it was only of a 

 private nature. Matches against time and trials of speed between two horses 

 represented the racing of this period. It was left for James I to intro- . 

 duce into England the sport lie had previously established in Scotland. He 

 inaugurated races at Gatterley, in Yorkshire; at Croydon, and at Theobalds 

 at Enfield Chase. He encouraged every kind of horsemanship, the impor- 

 tation of foreign horses, especially of a racing type, and was the first to 

 land upon our shores a pure-bred Arabian, which he bought of a merchant 

 named Markham for £500. This animal turned out a failure, and well it 

 might, if the description given of him by the Duke of Newcastle in liis 

 treatise on horsemanship was correct, " a little boney, bay horse of ordinary 

 shape and almost worthless"; but James, nothing daunted, purchased of 

 Pace, afterwards stud-master to Cromwell, a horse brought from the north 

 coast of Africa, and known as the White Turk. The example set by James 

 was followed by his friends. The first Duke of Buckingham imported the 

 Helmsley Turk, and Lord Fairfax the Morocco Barb. From this date 

 improvement in our breed of light horses commenced. But although 

 Eastern horses were in demand to efiect this object, their qualifications had 

 only been partially recognized, for we find Gervase Markham stating " the 

 true English-bred horse to be superior to those of any other country. I do 

 daily find in my experience that the virtue, goodness, boldness, swiftness, 

 and endurance of our true-bred English horses is equal to any race of 

 horses whatsoever. For swiftness, what nation has brought forth the horse 

 which has exceeded the English? When the best Barbaries that ever were 

 were in their prime, I saw them overcome by a black hobby at Salisbury, 

 and yet that black hobby was overcome by a horse called Valentine, which 

 Valentine neither in hunting or running was ever equalled, yet was a plain- 

 bred English horse both by dam and syre." From this quotation it can be 

 seen that among native stock good specimens existed, upon which the 

 imported Oriental blood was about to give its impression of further excel- 

 lence. These were the days when the love of racing created the demand 

 for swift horses, and the turf an incentive to their importation and propa- 

 gation. At this epoch the most successful performers on the turf, both 

 horses and mares, were distinguished from common stock by being classified 



