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THE ENGLISH RACE-HORSE. 

 PLATE IX. 



To what blood the British race-horse is chiefly 

 indebted for his supremacy, is a question that has 

 been repeatedly agitated. Turk, Barb, Arab, and 

 Persian, the Spanish jennet, and the best formed 

 animals of the domestic, originally Flemish black 

 breed, German and Norman horses, are all directly 

 or remotely connected with it ; but the meaner and 

 less generous families are allied only at a more 

 ancient date, and even the Spanish for many gene- 

 rations has been discarded, although some horses of 

 great speed are mentioned to have been of this 

 blood so late as the latter half of the last century, * 

 and others with a pedigree stained with vulgar 

 blood have occasionally acquired considerable repu- 

 tation ; t yet both the race-horse and the hunter, 

 when stud-books are consulted, where the pedigrees 

 are recorded, clearly descend from Turkish and Barb 

 parentage more exclusively in the beginning, and 

 from the Arab at a subsequent period. Thus, to 

 the Byerly Turk we owe the Herod blood, whence 

 Highflyer descended; to the Godolphin Barb the 

 Matchem, considered as the stoutest, or what is 

 termed as the most honest filiation ; to the Darley 

 Arabian, the sire of Flying Childers, is due the 



* Shotten-herring, Conqueror, Butter, and Peacock, accord- 

 ing to Sonnini, were of Spanish blood, 

 t S'ach as Sampson and Bay Malton. 



