CHAPTER VI. 



HOW TO BREED A HORSE — MODERN ARAB BLOOD. 



ENGLISH AND AMERICAN THOROUGH-BREDS DERIVED FROM ORIENTAL BLOOD 

 — ARE NOW SUPERIOR TO THE MODERN ARABS — NOLAN ARAB. 



It is an indisputable fact, tliat all tlie excellence of the Eng, 

 lish and American thorough -bred horse is derived from 

 Oriental blood of the desert, and originates, it is believed, 

 in the admixture of the various breeds of the several coun- 

 tries to which the horse in its purest and highest form, 

 lias from remote ages been indigenous. These countries 

 are Arabia, Syria, Persia, Turkistan, the Barbary States, 

 Nubia and Abyssinia, all of which have races nearly con- 

 nected with each other, but all possessing distinct charac- 

 teristics. There would appear, of these races, to be in the 

 English thorough-bred horse — with which the American is 

 identical — a larger proportion of Barb than of pure Arabi- 

 an blood. The celebrated Godolphin is generally considered 

 by the most competent judges to have been a Barb. Fair- 

 fax's celebrated horse was a Barb ; the royal mares imported 

 by King Charles II., to which nine-terjths of our modern 

 thorough-bred horses trace, were Tunisian or Tangier Barbs. 

 The other most famous progenitors have been Turks, as 

 the Byerly Turk, the Lyster, or straddling Turk, the 

 D' Arcy yellow Turk, Plaice's white Turk, and many others. 

 The most noted of the pure Arabians was the Parley Ara- 



