WHAT SORT OF HORSE TO BREED 219 



of some of them, the property of Mr. William 

 Lyons, that they were beautiful mares — he never 

 saw lovelier mares. These ponies ' showed the char- 

 acteristics, implanted by the infusion of Barb blood, 

 in their blood-like heads and clean limbs.' The 

 reader will again note the sequence, dying out of 

 the Arab blood, and consequent deterioration. 



It will have been observed that many of the 

 authorities cited have dwelt upon the necessity for 

 low horses. This was overwhelmingly shown by 

 the Boer War, and has been since admitted and 

 insisted upon by the order of the War-Office 

 authorities, which is, in fact, a policy of return to 

 the Arab. The Arab is, and always has been, a 

 low horse. The light riding-horse of old England, 

 considerably founded upon the Arab, was a low 

 horse. In the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was 

 passed (32 Henry VIII.) to require mares to be 

 at least 13 hands, and the sires 14 hands. That 

 shows how low the English horses were. The 

 three great founders, as they have been called (but 

 they were by no means founders), of the ' blood 

 royal ' of English horse-flesh — the Byerly Turk, 

 the Darley Arabian, and the Godolphin Arabian — 

 were only 14 hands ; and Sir Walter Gilbey, in the 

 Live Stock Journal Almanack, 1902, says that so late 

 as 1700 our racehorses only averaged 14 hands : he 

 cites an author of a book on horses in 1836 who 

 states that excessive height had diminished stout- 

 ness, ability to carry weight, and staying power. 



