CHAPTER Vn. 



THOROUGHBRED HORSES. 



I. ENGLISH THOROUGHBREDS. II. HERBERT'S HISTORVOF THE ENGLISH HORSE. 



III. THE FlUST LONDON RACE COURSE. IV. HORSES TAKEN TO ENGLAND BY 



CRUSADERS. V. BONE AND BULK IMPARTED TO THE ENGLISH HORSE. VL THE 



HORSE IN THE TIMES OF HENRY VIII AND JAMES I. VIK AMERICAN THOROUGH- 

 BREDS. VIII. THE ARABIAN. 



I. English Thoroughbreds. 

 The English thoroughbreds are horses of mixed lineage. They are 

 not a pure race, bred for hundreds of 3''ears without admixture of foreign 

 blood ; but they rather OAve their great excellence to the crossing of 

 Arabian, Barb, and other Oriental blood, upon the best racing stock of 

 the last and the preceding century. The English have been famous, dur 

 ing the last thousand 3'ears, for their horses, especially for horses of 

 speed and endurance. They have always had a passionate foi;dness fov 

 the chase and for racing ; and their kings and nobles have done much to 

 keep alive this feeling, by securing, from time to time, the best foreign 

 blood that could be secured to impart fresh stamina and vigor to their 

 stock of horses. Many persons are prejudiced against thoroughbred 

 horses, because they have been used for gambling purpose^ on the turf, 

 but this fact should not be allowed to create hostility against valuable 

 animals. As well might wheat and corn be placed under a ban because 

 these indispensable cereals are used for purposes of gambling specula- 

 tion. It is this passion for trying the speed of horses, which has pre- 

 vailed during the lastten centuries, thathasledto the selection of the best 

 breeds and given an impetus during the past 100 years to really scientific 

 breeding. And it is to these latter causes that we owe all that is of val- 

 ue in any of the improved breeds of horses existing to-day, not even ex- 

 cepting our draft horses. Let us look at the history of the blooded 

 horse of England, and view its gradual rise and progress, even from be- 

 yond the Christian era. 



n. Herbert's History of the English Horse. 



Henry William Herbert, in his admirable and voluminous work on the 

 Horse of America, now unfortunately out of print, has traced the Eng- 

 lish horse so carefully, and at the same time so concisely, that one cannot 

 do better than extract therefrom matter that otherwise the mass of the 

 readers of to-day could not come at. He says, upon the authority of 

 Youatt: "That horses were introduced into Britain long before the 

 Christian era, we have abundant evidence, and that the inhabitants h&d 



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