CHAPTER I. 



OKIENTAL BLOOD-HORSES : ARABS, BARBS, PERSIANS, DONGOLAS, TURCOMANS. 



M-jaiiing of "Quality" and "Thorough -bred "—The Reality of Equine Aristocracy— Advantages of a Cross of Blood— The 

 English Blood-horse a modern Creation— Assyrian Bas-reliefs represent the Blood-horse— Arabs of Reality and of Poetry — 

 Sidonia's Arab— The Poet Rogers— Ge )rge Borrow— Turkish Horses Imported after Crimean War— Captain Morant's Little 

 Turl<ish Hunter— Turkish Arabs of the Last Century— Omar Pacha's Arab in Northamptonshire of no value as a Sire 

 —Parker Gillmore's Description of Barbs— The Shah's Persian Horses— The " Flying Childe's " Grey Arabian Hunter- 

 Purchases during Crimean War— Anazeh Tribe — Anazeh Stallion — Turcoman Horses — Bedouin Horse-dealing — Wahabee 

 Horses, Pure Nejed Breed, Giffard Palgrave's Description of— Pasha Baker's Turcoman Horse— Cossacks— Arabs bred in 

 Galicia — The Dongola Horse, Bruce's Travels — Mr. Knight's Experiment on Exmoor with Dongolas — Objections to Arabs 

 by a Breeder— Spanish and Arab Crosses— Account of Two Choice Arabs ; bad Hacks, no Hunters, no Racers— The 

 Cross of English Blood horses with Spanish Mares— Result of Cross of Spanish Mares with a Son of Sheet- Anchor 

 — Continental Arab Studs. 



In the following pages the terms " thorough-bred " and " quahty " will frequently be used. It 

 may be as well to explain their meaning, for the benefit of readers who are not familiar with the 

 early history of the horse. 



"Thorough-bred" means that a horse's pedigree can be traced for generations from sires and 

 mares of English pure blood, or from Barbs, Arabs, or Persians, recorded in the English "Stud 

 Book" 



The blood-horse, whether English or Oriental, is the natural aristocrat of the equine race. 

 He possesses physical qualities in bone, in muscle, and in skin, which no mode of selection, no 

 advantage of soil and climate, have produced out of cart-horse breeds within historical times. 

 Climate and soil may raise or reduce the size of a tribe of horses, accident may create and per- 

 petuate singularities of colour or form ; but the signs of blood can only be produced by the 

 prepotent power of crosses of blood-horses or mares ; for all practical purposes the interesting 

 speculations of naturalists on the origin of the horse are useless, their conclusions are in defiance 

 of all historical evidence. 



Aristocrat, in all the countries of Continental Europe where pedigrees are preserved and 

 valued, is expressed by a term implying well-born, such as the blue blood {saiigre asul) of 

 ^^■3^m, gnadigcr of Germany, noble of France under her kings. 



In England, where more than in any other country attention has been paid to the pedigrees 

 of horses, of hounds, of cattle, of sheep, of pigs, and for many years past even of the best strains 

 of poultry and pigeons, the pedigrees of the human aristocracy have, curiously enough, never been 

 treated as of pre-eminent importance. This is proved by the fact that our language has no 

 synonym for the word mesalliance, which in French means the alliance of a noble with peasant 

 or shop-keeping, or even legal blood. Before the great French Revolution, memoir writers 

 distinguished between recent creations as "Nobility of the Sword" or "Nobility of the Robe"* 



The friends of Alexis de Tocqueville considered th.at he had degr.ided his finiily by becoming a barrister— "A man of 

 the robe ! Your ancestors have always been men of the sword."— A'.(«i(« Senior's Kecolhrlions. 



