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ORIGIN OF THE THOROUGHBRED HORSE Is an Animal of Oriental Extraction and Developed Through Centuries of Culture The question is frequentl asked What is a thoroughbred horse and Wherein does he differ from other horses horsesThe The thoroughbred horse is of oriental extraction and an animal developed through centuries of cul ¬ tivation by enlightened nations Oood food careful housing from stress if weather and ample care of mares during their period of gestation have made the thoroughbred horse what he is today while his oriental prototype in Asia and northern Africa is just what lie yasso far as concerns size power and liberty of action five centuries ago Tlie stride of the average Arabian or Barbarian horse is about seventeen feet at the apex of his speed while al ¬ most any thoroughbred will cover from twentyone to twentythree feet when fully extended The famous oldtime Alabama mare Peytbnia is said to have run at a stride of twentyeight feet feetEngland England is entitled to the credit of originating the thoroughbred horse The breed has spread over the entire intelligent habitable globe wherever the value of beauty in form utility speed combined with strength so indispensably necessary to labor pas ¬ time war and the turf is valued So the term thoroughbred when applied to horses is understood to mean an animal of a breed that has been bred in England for generations to race at the running gait Horses were raced in England for t least 00 years and probably considerably more than that be ¬ fore the thoroughbred breed was established Dur ¬ ing all those years the breeders of race horses in England had doubtless endeavored to improve the speed and other racewinning dualities of their racing stock by careful selections of sires and dams of demonstrated merit meritThe The eminent Englishr writer 1 II Walsh Stone henge author of the valuable standard work The Horse in the Stable and the Field stated that the breed of race horses known as thoroughbred was established about 1750 The foundation stock from which this breed was created as stated by Stonehcnge was as follpxys follpxysFirst First Native mares used for racing and bred from Spanish and English strains the former most probably descended from the Bards of Morocco MoroccoSecond Second Markhams Arabian imported in the time of James the First and most probably there is not now the slightest strain of his blood extant extantThird Third FlaciV White Turk extonslvciynsed and to him most of our best horses can be traced through Matchcni MatchcniFourth Fourth The three Turks brought over from the siege of Vienna in 1084 1084Fifth Fifth The royal mares imported by Charles the Second who sent his Master of the Horse to the Levant especially to procure them These are also mentioned in all the best pedigrees pedigreesDIVIDED DIVIDED INTO TWO CLASSES CLASSESThere There are two classes of thoroughbreds one of which includes only such descendants of King Charles royal mares as were by pure Barb Arabian or Turkish stallions without the adinixturc of other blood while the other class includes animals that are direct descendants in the paternal line of the first class and have inherited not less than five unbroken crosses in the maternal line of the thor oughbred of the first class As generally under ¬ stood it includes all such animals regardless of their speed ability or other racewinning qualities that were eligible to registration as thoroughbreds in the old English Stud Book and no distinction was made there between the two classes above named namedTiie Tiie thoroughbred liorsa of America is a descend ¬ ant of the English thoroughbred There were three horses to one or another of which the English thor ¬ oughbred is largely indebted for his most valuable qualities They were Byerly Turk Darley Arabian and Godolphin Arabian all of which were undoubt ¬ edly pure bred horses of the desert The three sur ¬ viving cardinal lines of the thoroughbred of the present time are Eclipse Matchem and Herod first called King Herod Eclipse foaled in 17C4 was a direct descendant in the paternal line of Darley Ara ¬ bian Matchem foaled in 1748 of Godolphin Arabian and Herod foaled in 175S of Kyerly Turk The dam of Herod was inbred to Darley Arabian through Flying Childcrs The dam of Matchem was by Crofts Partner a son of Jigg by Bycrly Turk anil the dam of Eclipse was by Regulus a son of Godol ¬ phin Arabian ArabianThe The thoroughbred horse of today therefore is simply developed from the oriental horse by cen ¬ turies of cultivation and good treatment The male lines of only three oriental horses are now extant the Darley Arabian the Byerly Turk and the Godol ¬ phin Arabian and all lines from these three ori ¬ ental sires are extinct with the exception of Mutch cm Herod and Eclipse
