PURITY OF BLOOD 97 



others, because originally their liuib.s and constitutions were at least as 

 sound as, or perhaps even sounder than, any other class of horses ; but 

 while they are selected and bred solely for speed, without much reference 

 to these other qualities, it is useless to expect much improvement ; but, on 

 the contrary, they may be expected to become yearly more and more soft 

 and yielding. For many purposes the Eastern horse is wholly unfit — as, 

 for instance, for heavy and dead pulls ; here his high courage, light weight, 

 and hasty temper are adverse to the performance of the task, and he is far 

 excelled by the old English, or modern improved cart-horse. No thorough- 

 bred horse would try again and again at a dead pull like many of our best 

 breeds of cart-horses ; and therefore he is little calculated for work which 

 requires this slow struggling kind of exertion. The pull of the Eastern 

 horse, or his descendant, is a snatch ; and though it may to a certain extent 

 be modified by use, yet it can never be brought up to the standard of the 

 English cart-horse, even if the weight of carcass and size and strength of 

 limb of the former could be sufficiently increased. 



ESSENTIALS IN THE THOROUGHBRED 



Such then are the general qualities of the thoroughbred horse and 

 the purposes to which he can be beneficially applied. It remains now to 

 consider the formation and sjjecific characteristics best adapted to the tui"f, 

 which is his chief arena ; and also to the hunting-field, which now absorbs 

 a very large number of his breed. Finally, it will be necessary to consider 

 him as a means of improving other breeds, such as the cavalry-charger, hack 

 and harness horse, but these subjects will fall under the respective heads 

 here mentioned. 



PURITY OF BLOOD 



In the first place purity of blood must be considered as a sine qud 

 non, for without it a horse cannot be considered thoroughbred, and therefore 

 we have only to ascertain the exact meaning of the term " blood." It is 

 not to be supposed that there is any real difierence between the blood of the 

 thoroughbred horse, and that of the half-bred animal ; no one could dis- 

 criminate between the two by any known means ; the term " blood " is here 

 synonymous with breed, and by purity of blood is meant purity in the 

 breeding of the individual animal under consideration ; that is to say, that 

 the horse which is entirely bred from one source is pure from any mixture 

 with any other, and may be a pure Suffolk Punch, or a pure Clydesdale, or 

 a pure thoroughbred horse. But all these terms are comparative, since there 

 is no such animal as a perfectly purely bred horse of any breed, whether 

 cart-horse, hack, or race-horse ; all have been produced from an admixture 

 with other kinds, and though now kept as pure as possible, yet they were 

 originally compounded fi'om varying elements ; and thus the i^ace-horse of 

 1700 was obtained from a mixture of Turks, Arabs, and Barbs. Even the 

 best and purest thoroughbreds are stained with some slight cross with the 

 old English or Spanish horse, as I have shown at page 70, and therefore it 



H 



