DETERIORATION IS FROM THE ARAB 85 



from Spain. But he adds that the reputation of 

 Newmarket for horse-racing seems to have arisen 

 from the spirit and swiftness of the Spanish horses 

 wrecked in the Armada and thrown ashore, and he 

 says that ' most undoubtedly the Arabian or Barb 

 strain gave us, through the Darley Arabian and the 

 Godolphin Arabian, the three best horses known up 

 to that time — Matchless, Harold, and Eclipse, to 

 which three sires all existing thoroughbred strains 

 of most value may be traced, whose blood we find 

 in the three horses which are undoubtedly the 

 best stallions of our time — Touchstone, foaled 

 1831 ; Voltigeur, foaled 1847; and Stockwell, foaled 



1849.' 



It is recorded that in 1728 the Bey of Tunis sent 

 eight pure-blooded Barbs to Louis XV. of France. 

 Scham was one of them. Roxana was being taken 

 to Highgoblin, when little Scham upset the groom, 

 and conquered and cowed the great white horse. 

 From them came Cade, who fathered Matchem. 

 Scham, now known as the Godolphin Arabian, was 

 also the sire of Regulus, and so down to the best 

 racing stock in England. Even there Scham 

 demonstrated the superiority of blood over bigness, 

 as Saladin did to Kenneth of Scotland, and as 

 the little Syrian ponies did to the great hungry 

 English horses which had to be left behind at 

 Cairo. 



In ^^ Sporting Calendar {qx ijjo, to which twelve 

 Dukes and no end of other great men were sub- 



