190 THE HORSE BOOK. 



one of the breeds in which a spotted, piebald or 

 skewbald horse has never been known to exist. 

 The common colors are gray, bay and brown, 

 with a few chestnuts and once in a while, though 

 very seldom, a black. The Arab is a small 

 horse, running mostly under 15 hands, slight of 

 conformation, very fine in quality, possessing 

 undoubtedly much endurance but lacking in 

 speed. As a sire of ladies' saddle horses of 

 small stature he is useful and some polo ponies 

 have been bred after him, but giving him due 

 credit for all his good qualities the Arabian 

 horse is a most unimportant factor in modern 

 horse breeding. He has, however, some devoted 

 adherents. 



THE STANDAED-BEED. 



Only insofar as he is the sire of the modern 

 roadster can the standard-bred horse be given 

 consideration here. Harness racing and breed- 

 ing for speed are entirely beyond the purview 

 of this work. However, as most of the success- 

 ful sires of roadsters belong to the Hamble- 

 tonian strain of the trotting breed it will be 

 necessary to recount briefly how the breed was 

 formed. 



Messenger was a gray Thoroughbred horse 

 foaled in England in 1780. He was raced and 

 in 1788 was imported to this country, landing 

 at Philadelphia. He begot a very numerous 

 progeny of horses that could trot and died in 



