FOREIGN HORSES 23 



have been the anxious moments regarding him ! Race- 

 horses of the highest class, hunters, coach-horses, hackneys, 

 trotters, and ponies, all claim descent in every civilised 

 nation from that bay colt with " a blaze downe his face, 

 something of the largest." If any mishap had happened 

 to him on the voyage, or if Mr. Thomas Darley, tempted 

 by "a considerable price," had resold him at Aleppo, 

 England would have known no Flying Childers, no 

 Eclipse, and might never have assumed that commanding 

 position in manufacturing the race of thoroughbreds, which 

 has since been hers. It is true that the other two great 

 Eastern horses already mentioned would have effected 

 much, and the services of the three were necessary to 

 achieve the magnificent result we can now boast of ; but 

 undoubtedly the greatest of the three was the Darley 

 Arabian, and his blood now predominates over the other 

 two combined. A full-length portrait in oils still hangs 

 on the walls at Aldby Park, and is evidently an excellent 

 likeness of the horse, with the precise markings mentioned 

 by the consul at Aleppo. 



Of the other two famous progenitors of our present 

 thoroughbreds little is known of the Byerley Turk, beyond 

 that he was ridden by his owner, Captain Byerley, as 

 a charger during King William's campaign in Ireland 

 (1689) ; and had been obtained by him as a prize of 

 warfare, when its then rider, an Emir, had been slain in 

 a battle with the Turks. 



The Godolphin Arabian was imported in 1726, stood 

 14.2, and was a Jilfan Stam el Bulad. His story is a 

 romance of the Turf. The legend runs that the horse 

 was sent as a present by the Emperor of Morocco to 

 Louis XIV. ; and the black groom in charge of him was 

 given orders never to lose sight of him, so long as the 

 horse lived. Such were the spirits of the animal that he 

 proved too great a handful for the royal grooms, and in 

 order to tame him he was handed over to the chief of the 

 kitchen, to be employed daily in fetching the requirements 

 of the king's household. Even the hard work he then 

 went through could not subdue his spirit, and so it befell 



