50 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



impression concerning his lack of judgment which may have been created by my last 

 mention of his name. His celebrated work was not published till 1658, but it was 

 the result of observation and experience long previous to the protracted exile which 

 compelled him to produce his first edition at Antwerp in French. A famous master 

 of the high school of manege, he was instructor to Charles II. when Prince of Wales, 

 and his unsympathetic attitude is easily explained by his preference for the " haute 

 ecole " over any form of racing. That he knew better when he cared to show it is 

 clear from his published recommendation, that barb stallions should be put to good 

 English mares ; and from the acuteness with which he remarks that " I have taken 

 the bone of the leg of a barb, and found it to be almost solid, having a hollow 

 scarcely large enough for a straw ; while in the same bone of a Flanders horse, you 

 may almost insert your finger." The best barbs he knew were Andalusian, and 

 came from the Royal stud at Cordova. But he dilates with much satisfaction on the 

 " Spanish " horses, a different breed of which he had owned several. " They are 

 extremely beautiful, and the most eligible of any, to form subjects for the artist, when 

 surrounded by the pomp and dignity of majesty, he would show himself to his 

 people." Pomps and vanities were dearer to the Duke, it may be fairly surmised, 

 than the winning of a bell at Newmarket or Chester, and he was evidently influenced 

 by such works as those of Antoine Pluvinel, or Rene de Menon, which were written 

 for countries where the passion for the Turf was never at any time to reach the 

 height it soon attained in England. 



Michael Barrett dedicated the third volume of his "Vineyard of Horsemanship " 

 to Sir Francis Payer. " For the shape of a running-horse," he writes, " there is not 

 much difference betwixt the shape of him and the hunter, as there is in their ends of 

 training. . . . Have as near a proportion as the former, only he may have a longer 

 chine, so that his side be longer he will take a larger stroke, especially on light 

 earths ; and if his limmes be more slender, and his joints more loose and not so 

 short at the pastern, he may be very excellent and swift for a course." Mr. Barrett's 

 idea of judging whether an animal has a good stride does not seem to me very sound ; 

 but as he refers his reader back to his own description of the hunter, I will quote 

 it here. The hunter, he says, must be " some sixteene hand of height, his head 

 of a mean bignesse, his chank thin and wide, his eare not too little, and if he 

 be somewhat wide-eared it is a sign of toughness, so they be sharp ; his forehead 

 broad, having a bunch standing out in the midst like a hare ; his eye full and large, 

 his nostrell wide, with a deep mouth ; all his head leane, a long straight neck ; a firm 



