THE AMERICAN RACE HORSE. 105 



of them named, known or identified until we strike the twenty- 

 first, and she described as "thoroughbred, imported mare," we 

 know that this is the work of the professional "pedigree maker," 

 and not more than once in a hundred times will we be mistaken. 

 This is alike true of both English and American pedigrees of 

 race horses. The modern crosses are comparatively honest, but 

 the remote extensions, through the maternal lines, in both coun- 

 tries are chiefly the products of a venal imagination. 



There are some foundation truths in the history and develop- 

 ment of the English and American race horse for they are both 

 one in blood to which I must briefly advert before dismissing 

 this topic. In announcing the conclusions which I have reached, 

 I am fully conscious that I will come in contact with pre-con- 

 ceived opinions that have been very prevalent, if not universal, 

 for at least two centuries. 



1. There were race horses in England that had been racing and 

 breeding for centuries before the first Saracenic horse was 

 brought there, -and it was not an uncommon thing for the native 

 to beat the exotic, when he first arrived. There had been racing 

 in America, by what we will call the native stock but they were 

 all English and Dutch for about one hundred years before the 

 first English race horse reached this country. 



2. These horses had been selected with care and bred for cen- 

 turies with more or less intelligence, with the single purpose of 

 increasing their speed. During those centuries there were not 

 so many writers on biology, heredity, etc., as we have now, but 

 the old aphorism, "Like begets like" a complete epitome of all 

 science on this subject was just as well known and as universally 

 believed a thousand years ago as it is to-day. We may, there- 

 fore, safely conclude that at the close of the sixteenth century 

 there were many native English horses, descended from lines and 

 tribes that had been selected, raced and bred for generations, 

 that were fully the equals of the best of the exotics, that were 

 brought in about that time. 



3. The native stock of England at the close of the sixteenth 

 century, was the stock from which the American colonies re- 

 ceived their first supplies, except the few brought from Utrecht, 

 in Holland, to the Dutch ^colonists in New York. When brought 

 across the Atlantic, especially in Virginia, no time was lost in con- 

 tinuing their development as race horses, which was carried for- 



