40 THE AMERICAN BLOOD-HORSE. 



America, cannot possess above one sixteen-thousandth part of 

 any other blood than that of the Desert. 



Nor can it be doubted, that the modern thorough-bred is 

 far superior to the present horse of the East in his qualities 

 and powers, as he is in size, bone, strength, and ability to 

 carry weight. It is to this very superiority of our thorough- 

 bred, which has been proved wherever it has encountered the 

 Oriental horse, that it must be ascribed, that no late cross of 

 Arab blood has, in the slightest degree, improved the Euro- 

 pean or American racer. 



It seems now to be a conceded point, that to improve any 

 Mood, the sire must be the superior animal ; and, since by care, 

 cultivation, superior food, and better management, our descend- 

 ant of Desert blood has been developed into an animal supe- 

 rior to his progenitors, mares of the improved race can gain 

 nothing by being crossed with the original stock ; although it 

 is yet to be seen, whether something might not be effected by 

 the importation of Oriental mares, and breeding them judiciously 

 to modern thorough-bred stallions. 



It has been already stated, that the first systematic attempts 

 at improving the blood of the English horse began in the reign 

 of King James I., was continued in that of Charles I. and 

 during the Commonwealth, and advanced with renewed spirit 

 on the restoration of the Stuarts. In the reign of Queen Anne, 

 the last of that house who occupied the English throne, the 

 English thorough-bred horse may be regarded as fairly estab- 

 lished ; the Darley Arabian, sire of Flying Childers, Curwen's 

 Barb, and Lord Carlisle's Turk, sire of the Bald Galloway, 

 being imported in her reign. Sixteen years after her death, 

 and three years before the settlement of Georgia, the youngest 



