THE BREEDS OP HORSES 73 



colored, slow but hardy pony of Upper Asia and Europe as the 

 original progenitor of all other horses, except those which have 

 resulted from a blending of these two, and the Black Flanders 

 horse is shown to have such an origin. 



In 1902 Professor Ewart described what he called a " Celtic 

 pony," a true pony and not a dwarf horse. It has a small head, 

 with prominent eyes, small ears, a heavy mane, slender legs, 

 small joints, well-formed, small hoofs, and " tail lock." 



ABABIAJSr 



No race of horses has enjoyed a more sentimental popularity 

 nor had its history more obscured by myth and tradition than 

 the Arab (Fig. 63). It is only comparatively recently that any 

 very definite information concerning them has been available. 

 Arabs have been considered in a general way as the original 

 source of the best blood, but this is not tlie case. There is every 

 reason to believe that horses similar to the best Arabs were in 

 Northern Africa more than one thousand years before horses 

 were known in Arabia. Their introduction was apparently from 

 Africa and took place some time between tlae first and the sixth 

 century. 



The number of good horses in Arabia is much smaller than 

 is geneTally supposed, and these are chiefly in the hands of cer- 

 tain families or tribes in the interior desert. The rank and file 

 of tlie horses in the hands of the common people are cither the 

 common bred Kurdish ponies, descendants of the original Euro- 

 pean stock or the produce of these by true Arab sires. The Arab 

 proper, a descendant and not an antecedent of the original 

 Libyan horse, is known as the KoKl breed, so named on account 

 of the peculiar blue black or antimony tint which characterizes 

 the skin of the body. The breed is composed of five strains 

 which, in turn, are believed by the Bedouins to be derived from 

 a single mare, named Keheilet Ajuz, and the most prominent 

 strain is named Keheilan, after her. They are mostly bays, 

 the fastest of any, and resemble most closely the English 

 Thoroughbred. The Darley Arabian, the greatest foundation 

 sire of the Thoroughbred, was of this strain. The others are 



