40 THE HORSE IN AMERICA 



improved over what he was at the beginning as 

 the beginners were better than the common 

 stock of England a century earlier. And this is 

 the type that we call to-day in America the 

 Thoroughbred. 



The importation of the Thoroughbred into this 

 country began in Colonial Virginia, where there 

 was then probably more sporting blood than 

 there is now, when it cannot be said to be at all 

 pallid, but on the contrary very red. The first 

 Thoroughbred of which there is record, and the 

 record is not as exact as we should like, was 

 brought to Virginia in 1730, by Messrs. Patton 

 and Gist, and was called BuUe Rock. He was 

 said to have been foaled in 1718, and to have been 

 sired by the Darley Arabian, first dam by the 

 Byerly Turk. That was good breeding, and the 

 gentlemen of Virginia accepted, to an extent, at 

 least, the invitation of BuUe Rock's owners to use 

 his services in improving the general stock of the 

 Old Dominion, for every now and then in the very 

 oldest records he appears in the genealogy. How 

 good the horses were that were landed in Virginia 

 previous to this time, we can not say, but only 



