IMPROVED HORS-K8 IN ENGLAND 27 



at one time. In the first quarter of the fourteenth 

 century, Edward II imported both mares and horses 

 of the draft type and fifty horses of Spanish blood. 

 Before his time, England had enacted sumptuary laws 

 in regard to horses, especially as to their exportation. 

 Upon the whole, these laws were beneficial and did 

 something toward improving the horse by retaining the 

 good ones and by the exclusion, in part, for breeding 

 purposes of inferior specimens. They were not re- 

 pealed until the sixteenth century. They provided, 

 among other things, that horses of a certain quality, 

 or valued at a certain price, should not be exported. 

 At the close of the fifteenth century, Henry VIII rigidly 

 executed the laws which prohibited the exportation of 

 both stallions and mares that were above a certain 

 value, which resulted in selling the poorer and keep- 

 ing the better animals. He also decreed that no stallion 

 under the height of fifteen hands (sixty inches) should 

 run at large on the commons, and that all foals, filleys 

 or rnares that were ill-shapen or undersized should be 

 killed. Thus for about three hundred years intelligent 

 effort was made to improve the horses of Great Britain 

 by selection and by the admixture of superior blood 

 of both Flemish and Spanish origin. 



In order to satisfy the Puritans, Oliver Cromwell 

 forbade racing, which had already become very com- 

 mon. Notwithstanding this, he was a lover of fast 

 horses and purchased of Mr. Place a noted Arabian 

 horse known as "White Turk," which was said to be the 

 most beautiful horse of eastern origin ever imported 

 into England. Many of the pedigrees of our present 



