192 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



blood to a considerable extent permeated all 

 the horse stock of Great Britain excepting those 

 bred especially for agricultural purposes. So 

 thoroughly had the passion for turf sports, or 

 horse-racing, taken possession of the English 

 people as early as the reign of Charles II that 

 ability to run and win in a race was even then 

 regarded as the principal test of merit in horses, 

 and those most successful on the turf were most 

 highly prized for breeding purposes. From that 

 time down to the present, embracing a period 

 of more than two hundred years, the selection 

 of breeding stock by English breeders of thor- 

 oughbred horses has been constantly made with 

 this as the primary object. 



With the advent of Charles II. in the last 

 half of the seventeenth century, breeding for 

 speed and endurance upon the race-course be- 

 gan to be conducted upon something like a 

 definite plan; the records of turf performances 

 were carefully kept, especial attention was paid 

 to the pedigrees of horses designed for the tnrf, 

 and an aristocracy of blood came to be recog- 

 nized in the horses of England. This monarch 

 sent his ''master of the horse" to the Levant to 

 procure horses with which to found a breeding 

 stud. This purchase comprised three very fa- 

 mous Turkish stallions and some mares that in 

 the equine literature of the day were called the 

 "royal mares," and these royal mares are by 



