12 



DOAIESTTC ANIMALS. 



FLYING CH1IJ>EES. 



witli the finest Arabian breeds, he has invariably come off conqueror, 

 even though he may be by no means the finest specimen of his class. 



The racer, however, with the most beautiful form, is occasionally a 

 sorry animal. There is sometimes a want of energy in an apparently 

 faultless shape for which there is no accounting; but there are two 

 points among those just enumerated which will rarely or never deceive, 

 a well-placed shoulder and a well-bent hinder leg. 



The Darley Arabian was the parent of our best racing stock. He 

 was purchased by Mr. Darley's brother at Aleppo, and was bred in the 

 neighboring desert of Palmyra. 



The immediate descendants of this invaluable horse were the Devon- 

 shire, or Flying Childers; the Bleeding, or Bartlett's Childers, who was 

 never trained; Almanzor and others. 



The two Childers were the means through which the blood and fame 

 of their sire were widely circulated, and from them descended another 

 Childers, Blaze, Snap, Sampson, Eclipse, and a host of excellent horses. 



The Devonshire, or Flying Childers, so called from the name of his 

 breeder, Mr. Childers, of Carr House, and the sale of him to the Duke 

 of Devonshire, was the fleetest horse of his day. He was at first trained 

 as a hunter, but the superior speed and courage wdiich he discovered 

 caused him to be soon transferred to the turf. Common report affirms 

 that he could run a mile in a minute, but there is no authentic record 

 of this. Childers ran over the round course at Newmarket (three miles 

 six furlongs and ninety-three yards) in six minutes and forty seconds; 

 and the Beacon course (four miles one furlong and one liundred and 

 thirty-eight yards) in seven minutes and thirty seconds. In 1772 a 

 mile was run by Fi retail in one minute and four seconds. 



More than twenty years after the Darley Arabian, and when the value 

 of the Arabian blood was fully established. Lord Godolphin possessed a 

 beautiful but singularly-shaped horse, which he called an Arabian, but 

 which was really a Barb. His crest, lofty and arched almost to a fault, 

 will distinguish him from every other horse. 



