AKABIAN, TURK, AND BARB. 



153 



Eastern blood than any of the three, Herod has considerably less than either of his 

 rivals, for the number of unknown mares in his pedigree is remarkable. I say 

 "unknown" because it is most improbable that, if they had been of pure Eastern 

 blood, so valuable a fact would not have been mentioned, especially as many well- 

 known cases are authenticated in which precisely that fact has been carefully 

 preserved. A very typical example of such an "unknown" mare is the Vintner 

 Marc, which belonged to Mr. Curwen of \Vorkington early in the seventeenth 

 century. Concerning her Mr. Crofts has left a valuable memorandum that she was 

 a brood mare before she raced, and that she was the best bred as well as the best 

 runner of her day in the North. If she had been either an imported Eastern mare, 

 or of clean Arab or Barb descent, Mr. Crofts would undoubtedly have said so. Most 

 probably she was exactly the kind of breed of which I have so often spoken the 

 English animal improved by such casual Eastern importations (through many 

 generations) as were habitual in the Lowther stud. The result at any rate is 

 beyond question. She had a filly by the white-legged Lowther barb, and another 

 by Pulleine's Arabian, and from her are descended in direct female line Partner 

 Crab, Soldier, Mulcy Moloch, Nitlwit/i, Bcndigo, Tertius, and many other winners clown 

 to Kilwarlin (Leger, 

 1887), and more recent 

 offspring still. 



I think the debt 

 which the modern his- 

 torian chiefly owes to 

 Bruce Lowe and Wil- 

 liam Allison is that, 

 while their predeces- 

 sors have invariably 

 laid stress upon the 

 Eastern sires alone, 

 these authors have been 

 the first really to direct 

 attention to the value 

 of those mares which are known to have been Eastern also. As was only to 

 be expected, when the difficulty of getting pure Arab mares is properly taken into 

 account, these early matrons are chiefly Barbs ; and some of the most famous are the 



Sir Charles Sedtey's " True Blue." 

 By permiuion of Mr. Somerville Tattertalt. 



