21 



Blundeville, who wrote at that time a splendid, work on the art of 

 riding, spoke disparagingly of these horses. 



The secret of how to improve horse-breeding was not yet dis- 

 covered; it was attempted with despotic: force, and only with crossings, 

 •of which nothing- extraordinary could be expected, or rather it was re- 

 lated to the existing peculiarities of the country, the heavy vehicles, 

 poor roads and slow mode of traveling, and suggested, nothing of the 

 remarkable changes, which in future centuries took place. 



Bhmdeville describes the majority of the horses as strong, heavy 

 and adapted only for heavy draught, a few were light, but these were 

 soft and of no endurance. As an exception he mentions a horse which 

 covered in one day the distance of eighty Knglish miles. 



Tests of speed were made at Smithfield, and in different parts of 

 England races were instituted regularly ; the first gatherings of this 

 kind took place at Parterly, Croydon anel Stamford ; but there was 

 neither a system like at present nor any particular type of horse, but 

 nunters and ordinary saddle horses ran together and the meetings 

 were open to all comers. 



There was at first no cotirse laid out, but the races were run fol- 

 lowing a trail across the field and sometimes the most difficult ground 

 was chosen. Then the steeple-chase came into existence, with its many 

 dangers and more of cruelty, than at our time, men being stationed at 

 intervals, whose duty it w^as, to whip the tired and exhausted animals 

 to new exertion. 



It must however be acknowledged, that the horse races in those 

 days Were not disgraced by betting and fraud, which seems to have 

 become inseparable from racing and hunting to-day. The prize con- 

 sisted ordinarily of a wooden bell, decorated with flowers ; later the 

 bell was made of silver. 



Horse racing now became more popular, but only in the last year 

 of the reign of John, were they governed by general rules. The races 

 however were often but mere bets, as to "who would reach the end 

 first, or tests of speed and endurance over unreasonably long distances. 

 The improvement by crossing English mares with Turkish and 

 Barbe horses in order to produce good race horses, was extensively 

 tried, but with little success and John decided for an experiment 'with 

 the Arabian breed. He probably remembered the history of the 

 Arabian stallion, given to one of his Scotch churches five hundred 

 years previously. From a dealer by the name of Markham he pur- 

 chased a celebrated Arab stallion for the sum of five hundred pounds. 

 Kings, like their subjects, are often influenced by the opinions of their 

 servants ; the Duke of Newcastle had an aversion against this foreign 

 horse and in his book on the art of riding, he describes this Arab, as a 

 thin legged good for nothing horse, because, after a season's training, it 

 could not race successfully. The opinion of the Duke, though probably 

 incorrect, was then of great weight and the Arabian horse lost its re. 

 putation among English horse breeders. Another horse of Oriental 

 origin was then brought to England and called White Turk, then fol- 



