68 The Book of the Hokse. 



No thorough-bred piebald has appeared in public in the present century ; but in a letter to 

 the author from the Duke of Beaufort, his Grace mentions that a Physalis mare once bred him 

 piebald twins. 



Skewball, foaled in 1741 by the Godolphin Arabian, dam by Whitefoot out of the Leedes 

 mare (the dam of Flying Childers) bred by the Earl of Godolphin, won a great number of 

 plates and prizes in England, and one famous match in Ireland. 



The breeders of pedigree farm stock, from bulls to prize poultry, are very particular about 

 colour — a black-nosed Shorthorn, a foul feather in a Spanish bird, or blue legs in a game 

 cock, are considered fatal defects — and foreigners object strongly to white marks in the sires 

 they purchase, whether thorough-bred or trotting ; but this objection is not entertained in England 

 if the mark is not an ugly one. 



An examination of the "Calendar" shows that very frequently race-horses do not perpetuate 

 their own colours. For example, the "Calendar" of 1872 showed that out of the bay King Tom's 

 nine foals, four were chestnuts and one brown ; Lord Lyon had eight bays, five browns, and four 

 chestnuts ; Blair Athol had seventeen chestnuts, his own colour, fourteen bays, and one brown ; 

 Old Voltigeur in his decline got all bays or browns ; Young Melbourne four browns, all the rest 

 chestnuts ; while Saunterer, who was black, was the sire of fourteen chestnuts, of ten bays, 

 three browns, and only two blacks. It is the opinion of the training fraternity that there never 

 was a good black mare on the turf, although traditions of the hunting-field name many not 

 quite thorough-bred. Comparing the colour of the British thorough-breds with the Arabs of 

 Syria and the Wahabee country, it will be observed that the chief dift"erence is in the rarity of 

 greys and presence of roans in the English breeds. Black is equally rare in both. 



Many thorough-bred horses have grey hairs thinly distributed over a dark coat, a variation 

 not objected to ; but the prejudice against greys is very strong in training stables. When, 

 some years ago, a grey son of Chanticleer was quoted in the betting for the great race at Epsom, 



the Honourable F L , one of the highest authorities on racing pedigrees, wrote, " I can 



never believe that a grey horse can win the Derby." In November, 1878, three grey thorough- 

 breds were sold by auction at Tattersall's — viz., Little Nell, grey mare by Blair Athol out of 

 Ellen the Fair, by Chanticleer, a grey filly by Musket and a grey colt by Knight of the Garter, 

 both out of Little Nell. It will be observed that none of these sires were grey, but the blood 

 of Chanticleer was so prepotent as to colour that it outbalanced the chestnut of even Blair 

 Athol ; but these greys did not inherit his racing merits, and none of them fetched a hundred 

 pounds. 



French and German writers devote pages to a description of the different shades in the 

 colours of horses, but it is a subject on which no accurate information could be conveyed with- 

 out a lecture illustrated by living subjects, or plates more costly than the question is worth. It 

 is difficult to describe where bay ceases and brown begins. A black horse in low condition 

 often appears of a rusty brown. In England alone a black horse with tan muzzle and flanks 

 is conventionally called a brown horse. Chestnuts have nearly as many shades as bays, between 

 the light gold and the dark sorrel which is black in a gloomy stable. Roans may be black 

 or red. The late Earl of Derby had, early in his racing career, a black roan race-horse called 

 Parolles ; Lord Glasgow's breed are red or yellow roans. Grey means any colour between 

 steel grey and light mottled grey. Grey may be of a shade most fashionable or extremely 

 vulgar. 



The following tables and figures, collected from the "Racing Calendar" for 1S72, epitomise 

 the then history and condition of the British turf 



