OUR DEBT TO THE ARAB 27 



Ihe " warm blood " a horse has in his veins. But 

 this does not wholly answer the question, nor go 

 quite to the root of the matter. What makes 

 warm blood? What gives to our thoroughbreds 

 and trotters their dead-game qualities ? 



The answer is oriental blood — Arabian or, if 

 not always literally and strictly that, then of a 

 stock so closely allied as to be practically the 

 same thing. It is true that we have to go back 

 a long distance to find it, but there it is, the start- 

 ing-point, the source and fountainhead of the 

 highest equine characteristics. Again, why? Be- 

 cause the Arabian horse was bred with reference 

 to speed and endurance and upon the highest 

 standard of conformation and character, from a 

 period so remote that it can hardly be traced. 

 And the fixity of type in any breed— its tendency 

 to reproduce itself unaltered when bred, like sire 

 to like dam, and its prepotency when crossed 

 upon other stock — is in direct proportion to the 

 time it has been bred as a distinct breed without 

 contamination or admixture. 



We, whose beards are gray, can recall a time, 

 not so very long ago, either, when the trotter was 

 a colder-blooded horse than he is now and when 

 it was often said, especially by breeders of thor- 

 oughbred stock, that the American trotter was 

 of no fixed type and no recognized conformation. 



