THE RACE HORSE. 



THE RACE HORSE. 



THE THOROUGH-BRED HORSE, or RACER, like the GAME COCK, the BULL 

 DOG, and the PUGILIST, are the peculiar productions of BRITAIN and IRELAISD, 

 unequalled for high courage, stoutness of heart, and patience under suffering. 

 The term thorough-bred, in Britain and Ireland, indicates the horse to be either a 

 remote or immediate pure, unmixed descendant of the South Eastern courser, Ara- 

 bian, Barb, Turk, Persian, Syrian, Egyptian, or of the conterminous countries ; the 

 preference for antiquity and purity of racing blood being always due to the produce 

 of the Arabian and African desarts. The modern English race horse resembles most 

 the Arabian, in the general outline of his figure, his limbs, the form of his head, and 

 in his countenance ; but from the great care and high keep which he has enjoyed 

 in this country through so many descents, he is of far greater height and bulk 

 and equally superior powers. Art is the handmaid and improver of nature ; and 

 notwithstanding* the boasted speed of animals in the natural state, there is no doubt 

 of the superiority of the trained courser. Thus the British race horse, even at an 

 equality of size and power to carry weight, is far more swift and more stout, in the 

 turf phrase, more lasting, than the natural courser of the desart of the oldest 

 pedigree. Such is the universal experience from trials in this country, and such 

 would in all probability be the result, were the rival horses taken young, and 

 trained and tried upon an equidistant and neutral soil. This opinion may not 

 altogether coincide with the sentiments of those, who have been accustomed to read 

 and swallow without investigation, those proper supplements to the Arabian Nights, 

 relations of the speed and extent of the journies performed in a given time by 

 Arabian horses : a little aid may be given to the judgment of these gentlemen, by the 

 suggestion that, in the desart, are no mile posts, no clocks or watches, wherewith 

 to measure time, no clerks of the course to start the horses, nor judges to drop the 

 flag at the ending post ; but that the jockey himself is often the only spectator and 

 detailer of his horse's performance ; and that in all the Eastern writings, ancient 

 or modern, exaggeration is the predominant figure. 



In the early periods of the turf, recourse must have been had for racers to 

 foreign horses, and to the bastard breeds, as they were then styled, or mixtures 

 between foreigners and the lightest native breed of the country. Spanish 

 jennets, the descendants of Barbs, were trained : in short, any well-shaped nag 

 with good action in the gallop, was deemed a racer. The idea of thorough-breed 

 and its peculiar qualities, had not then taken place, but was afterwards gradually and 

 experimentally developed. The mild climate and gramineous soil of this country, 



