384 



THE HOESES OF PREHISTORIC 



[CH. 



it highly probable that the mares acquired by Charles II were 

 not more choice in quality and colour than were their mates. 

 The Darley Arabian (1710) was purchased in Aleppo by the 

 brother of his owner, Mr Darley, As he had been bred in the 

 desert of Palmyra it is probable that he may have been of full 

 Al-Khamseh blood. This horse by name Ras-el-Fedowi (' The 

 Headstrong') was dark bay, as is shown by his portrait, still 

 at Alby Hall. His immediate descendants were the Devon- 

 shire or Flying Childers (Fig. 105), who Avas bay, and whose 

 portrait is preserved at Chatsworth, the Bleeding Childers, 



Fre. 106. The Godolphin Barb. 



or Bartlett's Childers (who was never trained), Amazon, and 

 many others. From the two Childers were descended another 

 Childers, Blaze, Sampson, Eclipse, and many other good horses. 

 Eclipse in turn became the sire of 334 winners of races. The 

 GodoljDhin Barb (Fig. 106), purchased in Paris as he w^as drawing 

 a water-cart, w^as presented to Lord Godolphin (who termed 

 him an Arabian^) some twenty years after Mr Darley had 

 imported his Arabian. He died in 1753, and is buried under 

 the stable gateway at Gog-Magog, near Cambridge. 



^ The inscription on his tombstone is as follows: "The Godolphin Arabian, 

 died 1753, aged 29 years." Richard Berenger, Gentleman of the Horse to 

 George III, emphatically denies that the famous horse was an Arabian {History 

 and Art of Horsemanship, 1771). 



