Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 385 



It has been long remarked that although in its early days 

 our racing stock showed numbers of blacks, greys, and whites, 

 it has gradually become almost entirely a race of bays and 

 chestnuts. It has also been pointed out that the strain of the 

 Godolphin Barb, which had exercised so great an influence in 

 the early period, has for the last half century given place to 

 that of the Darley Arabian. 



In 1786 two English thoroughbred sires, Messenger and 

 Shark 1 , were exported to America and laid the foundation of 

 the thoroughbred stock in that country, and since then the 



FIG. 107. Yorkshire Coach-Horse. 



Americans have constantly kept importing good English sires. 

 The Australian thoroughbreds are likewise English in origin, 

 but owe to a recent infusion of fresh North African blood their 

 sound constitutions for which they are famous. 



It is from a judicious blending of thoroughbred blood with 

 the old great horse that several of our most useful breeds have 

 come. We saw that when the great horse was discarded by 

 the soldier he was utilized to drag the heavy coaches of the 

 seventeenth century through the sloughs and ruts of the high- 

 ways of that time. The desire to obtain a horse which would 

 combine greater speed with strength led to the crossing of 



1 John H. Wallace, The Horse of America (1897), pp. 222-31, 303, etc. 

 R. H. 25 



