6 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



he was strikingly solicitous that the friends at home should have 

 no doubt about the quality of the stock he purchased being all 

 "thoroughbred." No doubt he realized the awkwardness of the 

 location as not the right one in which to secure "thoroughbred" 

 Arabians and hence the vigorous indorsement of the honesty of 

 the "slick and experienced" dealers as honest men and true de- 

 scendants of the Bedouins of the desert. In this "he doth 

 protest too much" and thus suggests that while the pedigrees 

 came from the tribes of the desert to the South, it might be pos- 

 sible that the horses came from the farmers who bred them to the 

 North. However this may have been, the whole enterprise 

 turned out to be a flat failure, and after a number of years spent 

 in begging for popular support, the whole collection was dispersed 

 under the hammer of the auctioneer, not realizing a tithing of 

 the cost. 



While it is not necessary that I should express any opinion as 

 to whether Mr. Blunt was deceived in the breeding of the animals 

 which he brought home, I will make brief allusion to an Amer- 

 ican experience which is more fully considered elsewhere. Some 

 forty or more years ago Mr. A. Keene Richards, a breeder of race 

 horses in Kentucky, became impressed with the idea that the way 

 to improve the race horse of America was to introduce direct in- 

 fusions of the blood of Arabia. He did not hesitate, but he 

 started to Arabia and brought home some horses and mares and 

 put them to breeding. The pure bloods could not run at all and 

 the half-breeds were too slow to make the semblance of a contest 

 with Kentucky-bred colts. He concluded that he had been 

 cheated by the rascally Arabs in the blood they put upon him. 

 He then determined to go back and get the right blood, and as a 

 counselor he took with him the famous horse painter, Troye, 

 who was thoroughly up on anatomy and structure. They went 

 into the very heart of Arabia and spent many weeks among the 

 different tribes of the desert. They had greatly the advantage of 

 Mr. Blunt or any other amateur, for they were experienced horse- 

 men and knew just what they were doing. AVhen they were 

 ready to start home they believed they had found and secured 

 the very best horses that Arabia had produced. When the 

 produce of this second importation were old enough to run it was 

 found that they were no better than the first lot, and thus all the 

 bright dreams of enthusiasm were dissipated. Thus was demon- 

 strated for the thousandth time that the blood of even the best 



