388 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



may be attributed the extraordinary endurance of the Irish 

 hunter of the present time," but it is important to observe that 

 the writer admits " that the outward and apparent influence 

 of Spanish blood can at present be only recognized in the 

 Connemara pony." 



Irish horses were evidently in demand in England for racing, 

 and we learn from the passage of Gervase Mark ham cited above 

 (p. 377) that he had seen a black Hobbie beat the best Barbs 

 which had been in England in his own day. Markham's state- 

 ment has the further interest that he mentions the colour of 

 this excellent Irish racer. The fact that it was of a dark colour 

 points to a considerable infusion of North African blood. 



But already in the sixteenth century the Irish horses were 

 regarded as superior, for Thomas Blundeville in the work so often 

 cited ^ thus describes them : " The Irish Hobbie is a prettie fine 

 Horse, having a good head, and a bodie iudifferentlie well pro- 

 portioned, saving that manie of them be slender pin buttocked, 

 they be tender mouthed, nimble, light, pleasant, and apt to be 

 taught, and for the most part they be amblers, and therefore 

 verie meete for the saddle, and to travell by the way ; yea, and 

 the Irish men, both with darts, and with light spears, do use to 

 skirmish with them in the field. And manie of them do prove 

 to that use verie well, by meanes they be so light and swift, 

 notwithstanding I take them to be verie nesh and tender to 

 keepe, and also to be somewhat skittish and fearful, partlie per- 

 haps by nature, partlie for lacke of good breaking at the first." 



John Major^ writing on Ireland in 1520 says: "The island 

 produces a kind of horses which the natives call Haubini, 

 whose pace is of the gentlest. They were called Asturcones 

 (cf. p. 258) in old times, because they came from Asturia in 

 Spain, and indeed the Spanish colonists brought those horses 

 along with them. The French call these same horses English 

 Haubini or Hobini, because they get them by way of England." 

 Another medieval writer^ says that in all Ireland " most excel- 



1 The Riding and Breaking of Great Horses, ch. 2 (only in 2nd ed. 1580). 



- History of Great Britaine (transl. from the original Latin ed. (1.522) by 

 A. Constable (Edinburgh, 1892), pp. 53-4, with valuable notes). Littre explains 

 Hobin as nom d'un race de chevaux d'Ecosse ; cf. Littre, s.v. Hobin. 



* See Carve, Lyra, ed. 1666, p. 43 (cited by Constable). 



