26 THE HORSE IN AMERICA 



her horse is to show ignorance or to confess im- 

 posture. The breeders do not keep or give pedi- 

 grees except when they wish to bolster up the 

 merits of an inferior animal. And then they do it 

 because they have been asked to do so by Euro- 

 pean or American purchasers not acquainted 

 with the Arab practices. It seems as sensible to 

 ask an Arab for the pedigree of a horse as to ask a 

 diamond merchant for the pedigree of a stone. 

 The Arabs have had these horses time out of 

 mind. They know them to be purely bred. What 

 more could a sensible man want ? But if the pur- 

 chaser insists, then he may have any kind of pedi- 

 gree that seems to please him most. He can have 

 pure Nejdee, pure Barb, a cross between the two, 

 or any admixture of Egyptian, Syrian, or Turkish 

 blood that best suits his taste. But as a matter of 

 fact, these Eastern pedigrees are pure fakes, 

 merely made up things, such, for instance, as the 

 recorded pedigree of the famous Hambletonian, 

 the founder of the standard bred trotter in Amer- 

 ica. To the Arabs in their breeding, pedigree 

 makes no more difference in mating than it does 

 to the birds of the air or the beasts of the forest. 



