4 LIGHT HORSES : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



a stallion. Still, partly perhaps owing to the restrictions 

 placed by the King upon breeding operations, we are unable to 

 gather from the records that the stamp of horses improved 

 to any great extent in his reign. With Queen Elizabeth's 

 accession to the throne, however, a better state of things com- 

 menced. It is true that racing fell off; but, as a compensation, 

 the breed was maintained to a great extent through Barbs, 

 and Spanish horses descended from Barbs which were found 

 on the ships captured by Lord Howard, of Efnngham, when 

 he routed the Armada. 



Although James I. has often been sneered at on account of 

 the manner in which he occasionally followed hunting and 

 racing in some ways he may remind us of Colonel Thornton 

 he was beyond doubt a sportsman somewhat in advance of 

 his time. To confine ourselves, however, to the introduction 

 of foreign strains of blood, it seems that a good many foreign 

 horses were sent as presents to the English Court ; half-a- 

 dozen Barbs are said to have been brought to England by Sir 

 Thomas Edmonds, who, as ambassador and traveller, had 

 many opportunities of seeing Eastern sires, and who no doubt 

 imported others of which we know nothing. 



One imported horse, however, must be specially noticed 

 the Markham Arabian. So far as we can judge, this seems 

 to have been a private purchase of the King's, prompted solely 

 by his own desire to try an experiment. Possibly he may have 

 remembered the Arab said to have been presented to the Church 

 of St. Andrew about five hundred years before ; and may have 

 desired to try once more the effect of this blood. To put the 

 matter shortly, the Markham Arabian appears to have been a 

 failure. He was put into training, but could win no races ; nor 

 could any of his stock run. Prior to this time, there were as 

 we have shown, a great many Eastern horses of one kind and 

 another imported ; but this Markham Arabian is the only one 

 concerning which we have any details ; and these might 

 probably not have been forthcoming had it not been that the 

 Duke of Newcastle saw him, thought him " small potatoes 



