CHAPTER VI. 



^OW TO BBBED A HOBSE — MODERN A.RAB BLOODl 



UTQUBH AND AMERICAN THOROUGH-BREDS DERIVEl FROM ORIENTAL BLfDOB 

 — ABE NOW SUPERIOR TO THE MODERN ARABS — NOLAN ARAB. 



It is an indisputable fact, tliat all the excellence of the Eng- 

 lish and American thorough-bred horse is derived from 

 Oriental blood of the desert, and originates, it is believed, 

 in the admixture of the various breeds of the several coun- 

 tries to which the horse in its purest and highest Ibrm, 

 has from remote ages been indigenous. These countries 

 are Arabia, Syria, Persia, Turkistan, the Barbarj States, 

 Nubia and Abyssinia, all of which have races nearly con- 

 nected with each other, but all possessing distinct charac- 

 teristics. There would appear, of these races, to be in th« 

 English thorough-bred horse — with which the American is 

 identical — a larger proportion of Barb than of pure Arabi- 

 an blood. The celebrated Godolphin is generally considered 

 by the most competent judges to have been a Barb. Fair- 

 fax's celebrated horse was a Barb ; the royal mares imported 

 by King Charles II., to which nine-tenths of our modern 

 thorough-bred horses trace, were Tunisian or Tangier Barbs. 

 The other most famous progenitors have been Turks, as 

 the Byerly Turk, the Lyster, or straddling Turk, the 

 D' Arcy yellow Turk, Plaice's white Turk, and many others, 

 The most noted of the pure Arabians was the Darley Ara 

 [58] 



