24 THE HORSE. 



chronolocrioal crdcr, and imparling to them all the perspicuity and weight of digested 

 and authentic history. 



"Additional attention was given to blood during the reigns of f^izaheth and 

 James. The latter had his running horses, and with great judgment, imjjorted from 

 Arabia. A south-eastern horse was brought into Eni^land and j>urchased by James 

 of Mr. Place, who was afterwards Stud-niabter to Oliver Cromwell. This beautiful 

 animal was called Pluceh IVidlc Turk. .Shortly after appeared the Hclmsly Turk, 

 imported by the Duke of Buckingham. Charles I. ardently pursued the amusements 

 of the turf, now a iuvourite diversion with English gentlemen. With but few ex- 

 ceptions, the oldest English pedigrees end in Place's White Turk. At the Restoration 

 a new impulse was given to breeding and running fine horses. The system of 

 improvement was thencefortji zealously pursued. Every variety of Eastern blood 

 was engrafted upon the English; and the superiority of the produce, above the very 

 best of the original stock, began to be evident. Their beauty of form, speed, and stout- 

 ness, greatly surpassed the original breed. In the latter part of Queen Anne's reign 

 there was still further improvement caused by the introduction of the Darby Arabian. 

 Having to contend with prejudice, it was some time before he attracted notice. From 

 him sprung a strain of une([Lialled beauty, speed, and strength. The Darby Arabian 

 has been properly termed the parent of the racing stock. The present English 

 thorough-bred horse is of foreign extraction, improved and perfected by the influence 

 of climate and diligent cultivation. 



"The pedigree of English Eclipse affords a singular illustration of the descent from 

 pure Eastern blood, both of himself and his ancestors, Jilarske, Kegulus, S'(iuirt, and 

 Childers. The strictest attention has been paid to pedigree. In the descent of 

 almost every modern racer, not the slightest flaw can be discovered ; or when, with 

 the S})lendid exceptions of Sampson, and his son Bay Malton, one common drop has 

 mingled in the pure stream, it has been speedily detected in the degeneracy cf their 

 progeny. The Stud-1'ook, which is authority acknowledged by every English breeder, 

 traces all the old pi^digrees to some Eastern courser, or until they are lost in the 

 uncertainty of early breeding. 



"The tliorough-bred horse enters into every other breed, and adds or often gives to 

 it its only value. For a superior charger, hunter, or saddle-horse, three parts, or one- 

 half should be of pure blood; but for the horse of all work, less will answer. The 

 road-horse, according to the work required of him, should, like the hunter, possess 

 diflerent degrees of blood. The best kind of coach-horse is derived from mares of 

 some blood, crossed with a three-fourth or thorough-bred stallion of sufficient size 

 and substance. Even the dray-horse, and every otiier class of horse, is improved by 

 a partial mixture of the thorough-bred." 



The late John Randolph, a connoisseur as well as an amateur in all such matters, 

 used to say, that the long, slouching walk of the blood horse would tell, even in the 

 plough, in a hot summer's day. 



A retrospective sflance at the low condition of the turf, and of the blood horse in 

 this country, at the date of t!ie establishment of the A.-Mi:niCAX Tl'uk Register .and 

 Spouting Maoazink, by I\Ir. Skinner, at Baltimore, in 18--20, will show how the influ- 

 ence of that official record of blood and of performance, revived this ancient amuse- 

 ment, and, as if by magic, retrieved and brought into demand again, the still pure but 

 long-neglected descendants of illustrious ancestors. Pedigrees were thenceforth 

 strictly scrutinized, the grain was winnowed from the chaff; arul while some bastards, 

 claiming high family pretensions, were exposed and repudiated, the rust wliicli, through 

 time and carelessness, had accumulated on the bright escutclieon of the real Simon 

 Pure, was brushed away, and the mark of legitimacy indelibly stamped upon his 

 brow. 



Prior to the establishment of the Turf Register, the darn of Kate Kearney and of 

 Sussex, two among the best nags ever bred in the Old Dominion, was sold at jiublic 

 auction, for thiiUnMi ])ounds, tobacco currency, and was afterwards bought cut of a 

 cart for f^W, by Col. J. M. Sclden. a fair specimen, himself, of the gnrd old Virginia 

 stock ; without, at the time, it is true, a knowledge of iier pedigree. She was used as 

 a common farm hack, in the iu'aviest and hardest work, going in the wagon and 

 ^breaking up heavy James' River bottom-lands in the plough ; and, as Col. S. has 



