THE RACE HORSE. H 



thou, under the goadings of evil fortune, sell thy mother ? Neither will I sell 

 my mare.'* The second race of Guelfe, formerly pronounced Jilfi, comes from 

 Yemen in Arabia Fcelix, price about eight or nine hundred pounds sterling. The 

 race of Secluony, from the eastern part of the desart, is of somewhat less price. That 

 of Ocel-MeJhi is more slight, figury, and higher upon the leg, generally purchased 

 by the Turks, and in all probability, the same variety, in former days, imported 

 by our breeders under that name ; for example, the Helmsley, Lister, and Byerley 

 Turks : their price about six or seven hundred pounds. The Ocel-Sabi, of inferior 

 form, but the same variety, may be bought at about three hundred pounds ; and 

 the Ocel-Tre'idi, a race the lowest in the estimation of the Arabian dealers, and 

 said to have a taint of restiveness in them, at about two hundred pounds each. 



The glorious uncertainties of turf-breeding and horse-coursing are these 

 Racing depends upon blood and a just conformation in all the parts contributory 

 to action. Yet the best bred and finest formed horse may fail to prove a racer, 

 even to the common standard ; and the most successful racer of his year may 

 utterly fail as a stallion ; of these facts the examples are numerous < These how- 

 ever are exceptions to the general rule, which must ever be the guide of the 

 breeder and trainer. There is scarcely, perhaps no instance of full brothers or 

 sisters being both capital runners. One shall be of the highest form, the other 

 barely able to win a leather -plate. Perhaps blood, that is to say, favourite or 

 fashionable blood, has been too much depended upon by our breeders, to the neglect 

 of form, both in the horse and mare. 



Our English thorough breed, although it has acquired so great additional size 

 and bulk, has, in no respect, degenerated ; yet it has received very small supplies 

 of original blood from the East, within the last seventy or eighty years. Perhaps 

 no such renovation may be ever again needed. Since the Godolphin Arabian, we 

 have scarcely imported one horse from the Levant, which may be deemed a capital 

 stallion ; and the new blood, as it used to be called, is at so low an ebb of repute, 

 that few breeders will send a mare to a foreign horse. The immediate produce of 

 those, from our best mares, can seldom race ; in which case, and if we must wait 

 for the third or fourth generation, we might perhaps, with equal or greater hope 

 of success, breed from our own three part bred stock. The test of superiority and 

 worth in a foreign stallion is, that his immediate get have proved racers. The 

 Arabians were perhaps among the most successful of the new blood, each getting 

 two or three middling racers ; and even CJiillaby got a winner, although some of 

 his stock, colts and fillies, yearlings and two-year olds, sold from five crowns to 

 seven pounds ten shillings a-head. This Chillaby, the property and favourite of 

 Mr. Jennings, was called the Mad Arabian, afterwards purchased for the Circus, 

 at the opening of that theatre, and there tamed by Hughes, the well-known 

 Riding Master. We saw him at Clay Hall, in Essex, chained like a wild beast. 

 When he first arrived there, in order to make proof of his ferocity, they placed a 



D 



