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A HISTORY OF THE EXGLISH TURF. 



English thoroughbreds in the last fifty years or so who have been famous for 

 their lasting powers. The Americans have taught us lately to ride a long race 

 right out from start to 

 finish without any of 

 those waiting tactics 

 which used to spoil so 

 many contests. Perhaps 

 this will have its effect 

 in time upon the build 

 of winners, or to put it 

 more correctly perhaps 

 we may see that horses 

 who could do six fur- 

 longs fast can also win 

 at longer distances when 





Mr. John Crofts' " Torrismond" 

 By permission of II, R. II . Prince Christian. 



properly handled. In 

 any case, the swell of 



a pure Arab's barrel, seen from the front, is only less conspicuous than the 

 way in which his back ribs extend beyond the line of his haunches when 

 seen from behind. His whole shape is marked by perfect symmetry. He has a 

 short back with just room for the saddle and no more, but a longer stride in 

 proportion to his size than any other horse, which is chiefly owing to his knee 

 being set on low, and his sloping pasterns. The portraits of old racers repro- 

 duced in these pages may not always be very beautiful and artistic productions, 

 but they certainly betray an interesting effort to suggest some of these Arab points 

 in the horses which at that time were very near their original Arab ancestry. They 

 often show, for instance, less depth at the girth than we can imagine possible, 

 but the line of the belly is also far straightcr, the barrel more swelling, the back 

 ribs deeper ; and these indications are no cloubt correct. Other apparent mon- 

 strosities of draughtsmanship are equally pardonable from the genuine attempt 

 the artist makes to show a short cannon-bone in a horse of fourteen and a-half 

 hands, a most valuable point, which has often led him into pardonable exaggerations. 

 Such horses as Mr. Gibson's Grey Arabian were bought in the eighteenth 

 century from "the Immaum of Sinna in Arabia Felix" for ^"400 sterling, trans- 

 ported " from Yedmine down the Red Sea to Bombay, and thence to England 



