NOTED IMPORTATIONS 29 



trained to trot as fast as those which have originated 

 from out-crosses with animals not thoroughbreds, yet 

 with some warm blood and built on lines similar to 

 those of the thoroughbred, so modified as to better 

 adapt them to a fast trotting or racking gait. 



Charles II (1660-1685) paid great attention to the 

 turf, sending his Master of the Horse to the Levant 1 

 to import both mares and stallions, and it is to these 

 imported mares that the name of "Royal Mares" has 

 been given. 



The Spanish horses imported into England, it is 

 believed, were identical, or nearly so, with the oriental 

 blood; and the reason for sometimes importing Span- 

 ish horses instead of those from the Orient, was that 

 at this early period (first quarter of the fourteenth 

 century, King Edward) some of the Spanish horses 

 were more improved and better than Arabian horses. 

 It is quite probable that some of the running horses 

 of England and the trotting horses of America have 

 first an infusion of warm blood through the Spanish 

 horse, and later through direct importation from Arabia 

 and contiguous countries. 



1 Levant, the east, the point where the sun rises, especially the coun- 

 tries of Turkey, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, etc., which are 

 washed by the eastern part of the Mediterranean and its contiguous 

 waters. 



Various names are applied to the horse which has wholly, or in large 

 part, the blood of the Orient; as the "hot-blooded," "thoroughbred," 

 "running horse," "Arabian" and "Oriental horse." The term "Orient" 

 (the east), as used in works on the horse, is usually applied to the coun- 

 tries of Arabia, Morocco, Barbary and Turkey. Although Arabia is now 

 thought to possess horses of the best quality, the other countries men- 

 tioned, and even Spain, in early days, are said to have possessed better 

 horses than did Arabia, 



