102 THE HORSE. 



small a quantum of any given blood remains, after a given 

 nnmber of crosses, in the veins of any animal ; yet how vastly 

 that minimum quantity affects the quality of the descendant. 



" The pedigrees of many horses of celebrity," he says, " may 

 be traced back to Childers, the Darley Arabian, and other 

 worthies of that date ; but where there is only one direct line 

 of descent, the following calculation will show how little of the 

 blood flows in the veins of the present generation. It may be 

 considered that these horses flourished about a century ago, and 

 taking ten years as a generation, a lineal descendant of a horse 

 of that period only possesses ^ oV* portion of the blood. 



Farther crosses diminish it in a still more striking degree. 



I now come to the Marquis of Newcastle's last piece of ad- 

 vice to breeders ; and after briefly showing, by the example of 

 a few illustrious horses to which, more or less directly, our best 

 American blood traces, how implicitly liis advice has been fol- 

 lowed, I shall conclude my history of the English horse, with 

 the pedigree of the far-famed Eclipse ; and those of three or 

 four others, notable as the sources of the best American blood. 



" If you would have mares to breed running horses of, then 

 they must be shaped thus ; as light as possible, large and long, 

 but well shaped, a short back but long sides, and a little long- 

 legged ; their breast as narrow as may be, for so they will gallop 

 the lighter and nimbler, and run the faster, for the lighter and 

 thinner your breed for galloping the better. Your stallion by 

 any means must be a Barb, and somewhat of the shape that I 

 have described the mares to be of. For a Barb, that is a jade, 

 will get a better running horse than the best running horse in 

 England ; as Sir John Fenwick told me, who had more expe- 

 rience in running horses, then any man in all England. For 

 he had more rare running horses than all England beside, and 

 the most part of all the famous running horses in England that 

 ran, one against another, were of his race and breed. 



