THE THOROUGHBRED HORSE. 7 



How these "hobbies" were bred we have no means of know- 

 ing, but many of them are said to have come from Ireland, and 

 this is a rather curious circumstance in horse-breeding. Until 

 the hairy-heeled cart horse was introduced into Ireland, the cart 

 horse of the country was a clean-legged one, and it was from 

 these that the famous Irish hunters came hunters up to 

 weight, and by no means lacking pace. Is it not, therefore, 

 very probable that the race horse of former days may have 

 been bred on similar lines ? 



What has been written above has gone to show that up to 

 the time of the Commonwealth a good many external strains 

 of blood had been grafted on to the native stock ; even at 

 this time the lightest and swiftest horse was a composite 

 animal, more like our hunters he could not have been bred 

 to type ; nor could he have shown the mark of any particular 

 breed like the blood horse of to-day. Like our weight-carrying 

 hunter, he must have been more or less a chance-bred animal, 

 and in a kingdom of the blind where the one-eyed were kings, 

 the fastest stood out from the rest of their composite bred 

 brethren. 



How far pedigrees were kept generally we have little means 

 of knowing. But when all domestic matters were turned 

 upside down by that disastrous upheaval which put a stop to 

 everything except ill-feeling, it is more than probable that 

 many of the records which had unquestionably been kept 

 during the reign of James I. were destroyed, just as many 

 ecclesiastical records were destroyed at the Reformation. At 

 this stage, at all events, we are justified in arriving at the 

 conclusion that there were in England different kinds of horses, 

 and that from time to time the native stock had been crossed 

 with various foreign strains ; and in this state matters stood 

 at the Restoration. 



King Charles II. may not have been in all respects an ideal 

 monarch ; but it is to him that we owe the foundation of our 

 present race of thoroughbred horses. It seems, however, to 

 have been sometimes assumed that the thread of horse- 



