years later. It is evident from the tenor of this author's 

 remarks that the term was then a new one. 

 Laurence says : — 



" All horses intended for flii's purpose [racing] . '. . must 

 be Thoroughbred ; in plain terms, both their sires and dams 

 must be of the purest Asiatic or African [Barb] coursers 

 exclusively, and this must be attested in an authentic pedigree 

 throughout whatever number of English descendants." 



There is evidence in Laurence's own pages that the 

 term had not, in 1807, obtained what may be called general 

 currency. On more than one occasion we find him using 

 the expression " full or thorough blood," which indicates 

 that the word " Thoroughbred " would not be familiar to 

 all readers at that date. 



If further proof be needed that the term did not 

 become recognised as an English word till a compara- 

 tively modern time, we obtain it from the standard 

 dictionaries of much later dates than Laurence's History 

 and Delineation of the Horse. 



The edition of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary published in 

 1827 does not give the word. The earliest dictionary to 

 give "Thoroughbred" and its correct meaning is the 

 edition of Walker published in 1836 ; and it seems worth 

 pointing out the fact that when William Youatt wrote 

 his work The Horse, in 1831, he thought it necessary to 

 allude to the " Thoroughbred or Turf Horse." Thus, in 

 1831, the first authority of the time thought it necessary 

 to explain the word. 



Parent Stock of the Thoroughbred 



Eastern sires had been imported into this country 

 and crossed upon native mares from a very early period ; 



