MODERN ARAB BLOOD. 59 



bian. And it is, perhaps, the most considerable opinion 

 that the great and unrivalled excellence of the English 

 horse arises from the fact that he is the offspring of a ju- 

 dicious cross of all the best oriental races, and not the 

 produce of a system of close in -breeding. 



It is worthy of remark, however, that although the fact 

 iS universally admitted that the whole original excellence 

 of the English thorough blood is attributable to the blood 

 of the desert, and although no horse is to be held as thor- 

 ough-bred unless he can trace in both lines, paternal and 

 maternal, to that blood, and although many horses of va- 

 rious Eastern and African breeds have been constantly im- 

 ported both into England and America during the last two 

 hundred years, no one of them has improved the breed of 

 race-horses within the last century, or perhaps two centu- 

 ries. So low at present does modern Arabian blood stand 

 in the estimate of English turfmen, that a horse begotten 

 by a Turkish, Arab, Barb or Persian stallion, on an Eng- 

 lish thorough-bred mare, receives in the Goodwood Cup 

 and other races in which allowances are given, 24 lbs. from 

 all English bred racers ; and a horse begotten by such a 

 stallion on a mare of any one of the same races, receives 

 an enormous advantage of 48 lbs. The fact that even with 

 this enormous advantage, no horse so bred ever wins any 

 plate or race of consideration, shows that the distaste 

 to the blood is not a prejudice, but is founded on valid 

 reasons. Why this should be so is not so clear. It 

 appears, however, to be a certain and fixed rule of breed- 

 ing, that in order to improve any race the higher and purer 

 blood must be on the sire's side, not on the dam's ; and 

 that he must be the superior animal. It is, we think, now 

 an indisputable and undeniable fact, that the English 

 thorough-bred horse is, in all respects, but especially in 

 size, bone, power and beauty, a superior animal to anj 



