236 THE ARAB THE HORSE OF THE FUTURE 



was said by experts to be, as a whole, equal to, if 

 not better than, any class of a similar kind to be 

 seen in a show in England, and it was advised that 

 the country-bred mares should have in their pedi- 

 gree at least two known top crosses of thoroughbred 

 or Arab blood. No distinction is made between 

 English and Australian thoroughbreds. Both are 

 classified as thoroughbred, and a true desert Arab 

 is, of course, undeniably thoroughbred. It will, I 

 think, be difficult, if not impossible, for any fair- 

 minded person, no matter how much prejudiced he 

 may be against the Arab at the outset, to read this 

 report without recognising that in the opinion of the 

 Commissioners the Arab is the horse to rely on — in 

 short, that the Arab is the horse of the future. 



It would seem to be a very long way from a 

 lady's new-fashioned frock to the modern breeding 

 of Arab horses, yet the frock brought under my 

 notice a very late reference to that breeding ; for on 

 my wife — as wives, I fancy, are wont to do — 

 directing my attention to a pretty gown depicted 

 in her fashion-book, the Ladies Field, October 3, 

 1903, I noted, on looking at the paper, the pictures 

 of several horses, which I found were pictures 

 from a stud of polo-ponies bred by the Hon. 

 Mrs. Ives, at Moyns Park, Essex, of which there 

 is a long description. The writer says : ' Thorough- 

 bred cross seems almost essential in a modern polo- 

 pony ; but any sort of thoroughbred will not do at 

 all — far from it. To carry a heavy man at top 



