150 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



not bred in this country was bred outside it from English blood stock, not from 

 Eastern stock, remember, but from that blend which so soon proved itself superior 

 for racing purposes to every " thoroughbred " elsewhere, and which so well deserves 

 the better title of the " English thoroughbred." 



This points to the fact that the enthusiastic writers I quoted at the end of the 

 sixteenth century were not far wrong in their claims for the superiority of the 

 home-bred British horse. This native animal was, at his best, without doubt the 

 result of other than merely aboriginal strains. Since the days of the Romans there 

 was Arab blood in Britain to a greater or less extent ; but it only leavened the 

 home product in a somewhat fortuitous manner. Yet immediately the pick of that 

 home product was regularly put to Arab blood, a process well known to modern 

 breeders at once took place, the old strain was immeasurably strengthened, and a 

 real racer was both born and made. It is difficult if not impossible to describe 

 what in fact took place, and what were the actual factors contributed by each 

 parent to the common progeny. But something approaching to a fair estimate 

 may perhaps be got from consideration of the well known fact that the best breeds 

 of Eastern horse are still, and always have been, in their own country, the purest- 

 blooded animals in the world. In the beautiful creatures imported by Mr. Wilfrid 

 Blunt to-day we probably see a very close approximation to the importations of 

 seventeenth and eighteenth century breeders. In such races as that of Admiral 

 Tryon's Asil against Iambic at the Second Spring Meeting of 1885, we probably 

 see pretty much the same pace over the flat as that shown by the Markham Arabian 

 two hundred and fifty years before. Iambic was at least four stone behind his 

 stable companion of the same age, St. Simon, and Asil was a fair example of his 

 breed, yet even with an advantage of seven pounds more than that amount of 

 weight, the Arab could not touch the English racer. To any one familiar with 

 Indian handicaps exactly the same kind of experience has constantly occurred. 



The racing records of the Byerly Turk, the Darley Arabian, and the Godolphin 

 Arabian are very much to seek. It is as stallions that their reputation is imperishable ; 

 and I cannot agree with the opinion so cleverly advocated by Captain Upton 

 that ever since the days of Flying Childers we have simply retrograded in the art 

 of breeding. In the opening chapters of his interesting " Newmarket and Arabia" 

 Captain Upton makes two assertions for which I can only ask for further proof. 

 The first is that Basic, Blossom, Careless, Lcedes, sister to Lcedes, Charming 

 Jenny, Lonsdales Counsellor, Dyer's Dimple, the two Cliilders, and Lord Lonsdale's 



