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BRITISH BREEDING MYTHOLOGY NOTHING AUTHENTIC REALLY KNOWN OF THE BREEDING BREEDINGOF OF THE HORSES CREDITED WITH BEING THE THEFOUNDERS FOUNDERS OF THE THOROUGHBRED IN INENGLANDS ENGLANDS GENERAL STUD BOOK By SALVATOR SALVATORRecently Recently in Daily Racing Form I alluded to the fact that the scorn of British turfmen for tlie so called impure American racing strains was anything but consistent in view of the fact that their own horses wore far from being all that is claimed for them in blood And as this question is one of tlie most interesting from a breeding standpoint connected with thoroughbred affairs it may ho worth while to record a few facts regarding what to paraphrase Mr Voshurgh we may call misty old English pedi ¬ grees However misty is hardly the right word after all and we might more correctly designate them collectively as the breeding mythology of our British cousins cousinsEverybody Everybody witli even a smattering of turf lore is familiar with at least the name of Admiral Rons for so many years during the nineteenth century the most picturesque and dominant figure in the British racing world A book might easily be written around this celebrated character every page of which would hold the readers fascinated attention The Admiral was very Knglish very but lie was also very unique and his sayings and doings never failed to add piquancy to the days affairs lie it was who enunciated that imperishable aphorism All men are equal on the turf and under it perhaps the truest thing that was ever said of the racing world But like all intensive egoists and this the Admiral cer ¬ tainly was he was a plexus of dogmatic opinions and superstitions and very fond of laying down tlie law from which he tolerated no appeal Sometimes it is true he made statements or handed out ukases which he afterward had to take back particularly in one instance where a lawsuit compelled him to do so But as a rule it was I have spoken witli the Admiral and what he said was echoed and applauded until his popular appellation of Dictator of the Turf became generally accorded accordedOne One of the superstitions entertained by Admiral Rons which he dogmatically maintained was that the British thoroughbred was a pure exotic in whose veins there flowed not a drop of nonOriental blood This dictum he handed out about ISO and from that date it became an article of faith with all writers upon the subject and so remained for many years But the modern spirit which is restless In investigation anil analysis andpcrsisibhtin Ifs demands foiT reVfdenceirIeiigth1kfanto tvuirst Tori the veracity of the pure exotic theory And as soon as tlie light was let in tlie impartial investigators pronounced that the Admirals gospel was only an agreeable fiction historically it did not have a leg to stand on This all candid breeding critics today concede Nevertheless there still remain an even larger body of turfmen who obstinately adhere to this exploded fallacy and exploit the pure exotic notion Moreover so strong is the pull of prejudice and what tlie scientists term crowdpsychology that many writers upon turf and breeding subjects after having themselves shown that any such idea is preposterous end up by solemnly averring that it is sol This of course is very human also very amusing But it distinctly does not make for the spread of truth truthThe The researches of historians have established the fact that horse racing was a generally popular sport witli the inhabitants of the British Isles from time immemorial and that long before the turf or breeding interests became what in our modern phase we call organized England possessed a class if not a breed of running horses that were the fastest and best known in Europe This condition of affairs had long prevailed before the practice of importing Oriental or socalled Oriental stallions and mares came into vogue for the improvement of the breed that magical formula which has continued up to tlie present moment the motto for so many and diverse undertakings What is more it is ail historical fact that when the Oriental steeds began to be brought in for tlie improving process and they were pitted against the native born these exotic regenerators went down to crushing and monotonous defeat in very much the same fashion that Mr Wilfrid Blunts simonpure exotics did over two hundred years litter when he attempted to demonstrate the proposition that the best way in which to improve the modern thoroughbred breed was to introduce fresh infusions of Desert blood bloodCONCERNING CONCERNING THE MARKHAM ARABIAN ARABIANAccording According to the Stud Book the first Arabian authentically imported into England was that horse known historically as the Markham Arabian which James L the son of Mary Queen of Scots and the first of the Stuart kings added to the Royal stud James ascended the throne of Kngland in and established tlie precedent of royal patronage of the turf which ended in its worldwide sobriquet of the sport of kings In Hill he bought of one Master Markliam for 154 pounds the horse we know as asthe the Markham Arabian This historic animal his royal master had trai 1 for the course but alas the thenative native Myers put it all over him whenever lie started In addition lie was an utter failure as a sire and so far as known the modern British thoroughbred does not show a single tracing to him Neverthe ¬ less Theodore Andrea Cook now Sir Theodore ho having been knighted in 1911 who in 1910 published the most monumental history of the English turf over printed it being in three sumptuops volumes magnificently gotten up and lavishly illustrated with each volume dedicated to a dilTcrcnt Duke does not hesitate to proclaim that the Markham steed was the glorious founder of the breed Yet elsewhere in his work Sir Theodore records tiio facts about the native British horses and fails to indorse the pure exotic theory per se From the days of James who set the fashion the Oriental improvers increased and multiplied His son Charles I who thrwigli the agency of one Oliver Cromwell was so unlucky as to lose his kingdom not only but his head as well that happened in KM was not much of a turfman thonhg ho used to like to go to Newmarket to the races But he had at one time in his stud a white stallion called a Turk that after his fall became the property of one Master Place chief studgroom to Cromwell and is known to pedigree students as Placers White Turk To this horse the modern thoroughbred traces or is alleged to trace through various channels For instance the taproot of Bruce Lowes No 1 fain ily ends in a daughter of Places White Turk whose dam was Tragonwells natural Barb mare There are excellent grounds for believing that this taproot as well as several of the successive crosses super ¬ imposed upon it are imaginative but toll it not in Tattersalls whisper it not in the sanctum of the Sportsman SportsmanCromwell Cromwell confiscated tlie stud of Charles I in which way Master Place probably became the proud possessor of the White Turk and right here it may be remarked that the pedigree mythologists have no reason to exult especially over the appearances in and around those famous taproots of a host of crosses to Turks of many colors The Bedouins the breeders of the real steed of the Desert the orthodox and simonpure Arabian look down on the Turkish horse with a contempt that far exceeds that of even the modern British breeder for the impure American plebeian who now neighs disconsolately in oxilei from the holy pages of the General Stud Book In the eyes of the Bedouin the equine Turk is a baseborn mongrel the product of crossing Arab blood witli all sorts of Ipper Asiatic hybrids You will find among those present in many of the taproot pedigrees such horses as for instance DArcys Yellow Turk Which in plain language means that this steed was not only a Turk that is to say from the pure exotic standpoint a mongrel but horror of horrors was also a dun And dun as we all know is the signmanual of tlie mongrel of mongrels in the equine species being closely associated with cold blood wherever found However if yon can trace your proud thoroughbred back to DArcys Yel ¬ low Turk he is one of the elect Whereas if lie has a cross to Hanover or Lexington or conies from the Maria West family he is a pariah and properly belongs in outer darkness darknessTHE THE HELMSLEY TURK A METHUSELAH METHUSELAHAs As stated Charles I wasnt active as a turfman but his famous favorite George Villiers Duke of ofBuckingham Buckingham was The Duke bred and raced runners with great ardor and he was the owner of the horse horseknown known to history as the Helmsley Turk Many Knglish writers say that tills horse got his name be cause he became the property of a man named Helmsley but this is pure guesswork and the name is ac 1 counted for by the fact that the noble Duke had a countryplace and breeding establishment in Helmsley HelmsleyI I Yorkshire which incidentally the Puritans under Cromwell beautifully shot up about the time they theywere were cutting off the head of the king Incidentally I want to say that this Hlemsley Turk another Continued oil second page BRITISH BREEDING MYTHOLOG Continued from first page worthy who lurks about various taproots was undoubtedly the Methuselah of all thoroughbred ancient and modern As the Duke of Huckingham who owned him was assassinated in 1 2S he certain must have been foaled prior to that date let us say without doubt as early as 1125 Yet Aolume Fir of the English General Stud Hook gravely informs us that Dodsworths dam Hruce Lowes No I family begins with her a Harb mare was imported in the time of Charles the Second and was called Hoyal Mare She was sold by the studmaster after the Kings death for orty guineas at twenty yeai old when in foal by the Helmsley Turk with Vixen dam of the Old Child mare NOW Charles tl Second died in 108 and providing Dodsworths Dam was sold that same year this makes out the Helmslc Turk to which she was then with foal some sixty years of age when he made the cover that resulted i Vixen dam of the Old Child Mare for as we have seen the Helmsley Turk must have been foaled i early as 1523 The secret of prolonging the lives and the potency of thoroughbred or even Turkish stal lions to the age of sixty years has apparently been lost in these degenerate days For instance Lexing ton which was undoubtedly a very baseborn and degenerate steed only lived to the age of twentyliv and had got few foals the several last seasons while Hanover as we are aware died inglorious at lif teen and Commando even more ingloriously at about half that age AVhat a pity these feeble animals wcr so weak in the influence of that Helmsley Turk and unable to keep up their good work to the tine old ag of sixty sixtyThese These horses above alluded to all lived and died a long while ago but the reader is asked to bear i mind that they were of ineffable and transceiidant prepotency in endowing the modern Hritish thorough bred with his unequaled qualities Hut let us descend nearer the present from the dim backward an abysm of time and pay attention to those three so famous early fathers the Godolphin Arabian th Darley Arabian and the Hycrly Turk hailed by all turf historians as the real builders of the breed throng the unrivaled virtues of the three lines which lead to them through respectively Matchcm Eclipse in inHerod Herod Of these while his line in tailmale is no longer dominant by all means the most famous was th Godolphin Arabian And here stripped of all superfluous detail in his real history About 1728 a certaii Mr Coke of Norfolk a Quaker of humanitarian instincts happened to be in Paris and one day noticed horse being badly abused there on the streets His sympathies being aroused he interceded for the ani mal and finally bought him to rescue him from mistreatment At tiiat time he was drawing a watering cart Mr Coke took this horse home to England with him but having no use for liim presented him to man named Williams who kept a coffee house in London which Was frequented by men of sportini tastes Among these was the Karl of Godolphin who in 1730 Vantcd a stallion to use as a teaser fo his stallion Hobgoblin and Williams having like Coke before him no use for the little horse that tin lastnamed had picked up in Paris gave him to Lord Gouolphin GouolphinGODOLFHIN GODOLFHIN ARABIAN A FRENCHMAN FRENCHMANAccording According fo tradition in 1731 his Lordships brood niilre Hoxana was refused by Hobgoblin on accoun of which she was bred to the humble teaser and in 1752 produced Lath which became a famous racer This lifted his sire known historically as the Godolphin Arabian into prominence and he eventually be came a renowned progenitor It was then found necessary to fit him out with a pedigree or at least fancy line of blood Originally nothing was claimed to have been known f his breeding but now tin tale was spread that he was an Arabian of high degree However the individuality of tin horse was living and palpable contradiction of this claim so a revised version was produced This ran to tin effect that he was not an Arabian but a Harb and had been presented by the Sultan of Morocco to Lour XIV but had been sold out of the royal stables anil fallen into bad hands This tale was long acceptci as true until somebody pointed out the fact that Louis XIV had died in 1715 and that the Coke horsi could not have been foaled prior lo 1721 as he was not more than four years old when bought off tin water cart in 1728 The Louis XIV part of the romance was then omitted As a matter of fact tin horse a fifteenhand stallion dark dappled brown with a drooping rump sturdy limbs and an enormous almost unnaturally heavy neck looked nothing whatever like either an Arab or a JJarb In the volume 01 Hacing in the Hadminton Library its author the Earl of Suffolk with whom Arthur Coventry col ¬ laborated in an access of candor wrote of the Godolphin Arabian as follows He was a veri commonlooking horse and it is not surprising to hear that before coming to this country he had beei drawing a cart in Paris To this day many of the small Tarbts entire horses which are used in gig and common work on the highroads of France much resemble the pictures of that illustrious sire sireThat That the Godolphin Arabian was anything but a small native French horse there is absolutely nol a stitch of credible evidence to cite His alleged Oriental origin is purely mythical mythicalLet Let tis now brieliy consider the Pyerly Turk progenitor of the Herod line Where this horse cami from or what he was there is nothing to show The Stud Hook says of him simply that he was Captain Hyerlys charger in Ireland in King AVilliams wars 15SJ etc Many writers speak of him as having been imported from the east by Captain Hycrly but in tin original notices of the horse no such allega ¬ tionis made lie was called a Turk traditionally and tradition in the course of time has come to pass is fact When he was foaled or where when he died or where all these things are wholly unknown Captain Pyerly was a devotee of the turf He was naturally proud and fond of the horse that had borne liim safely through a bloody war and it was said saved his life at the HatHe of the Hoy no After he re ¬ turned mine to England anil settled dnvnho put the horse to a few mares and he got some good run ¬ ners All the rest is fable Hut as the fashion was to use Oriental horses to improve the breed and Hie PyerJy horse had manifestly helped to improve it he became a Turk in tin same way that the Joke excart horse became lirst an Arabian and then a Harb HarbBARLEY BARLEY ARABIAN OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN ORIGINNow Now we reach the Darley Arabian the progenitor of the line of lines that of Kclipse Here at ast we find a genuine Oriental horse He was bought it appears in Aleppo by a Mr Darley an English rador then and shipped to his brother in England about 1700 The accounts of this transaction openly ay that Hrother Darley obtained him for an inconsiderable sum it is said in tradefor a musket and i small amount of money from a fugitive Hedouin who according to his own story had stolen him from i member of a rival tribe In late years it has been claimed that papers are in existence which es ablish the fact that the Darley horse was of full AlKhamsih blood and probably the only pure ired Anazeh horse in our Stud Hold AAhat the papers in question may be is immaterial in view of he fact lirst that the horse was obtained from a man who had stolen him and second that the Hed of all competent investigators keep no written records puins are illiterate and according to the testimony if the breeding of their horses but depend on hearsay only in which fashion they eUiid their pedigrees or the benefit of the credulous tenderfoot to either life mares of Mahomet or if that is not satis actory back to those of Solomon himself In Sir Theodore Andrea Cooks gorgeous History of the English Turf the Darley Arabian is honored with a fullpage photogravure portrait which it is stated s reproduced direct from tlie original painting by 1 N Sartorius owned by the late but then living ir Walter Gilbey As J N Sartorius was not born until 1S5S see the English Dictionary of National iogrnphy we can estimate the value of a portrait by him of a horse that was in his prime in lJ5i In rofessor Lydekkcrs scholarly work The Horse and His Helatives 112 there appears another por rait of the Darley Arabian which is from the picture at Aldby Park No artists name is given he horse portrayed bears no resemblance whatever to the one depicted in the Cook history except that ts marks are similar In another writer on the thoroughbied 1 find the statement that no contemporary lortrait of the Darley horse exists Those described therefore are fanciful and of no real value valueIn In taking leave of this subject it is to be noticed that the descent of Kclipse from the Darley Arabian s subject to what are known as historic doubts The Darley horse founded his fame as a progenitor y begetting the celebrated Flying Childers in 1711 from a mare called Hetty Leedes by Careless Flying hilders founded no family of his own but Hartletts Childers alleged to have been bis brother sired iqiiirt the sire of Marske the sire of Eclipse Here is what the Stud POok says about Partletts Childers Childers it being generally supposed that he was a brother This horse was for several years called Young o the Devonshire Childers though some insisted that Hetty Leedes never produced any other foal than lying Childers except oiie tiiat was choked when very young by eating chaff Mr Cheney says he has card the contrary from so many gentlemen of worth and honor that he cannot but be of the opinion that it Hartletts Childers got so many good horses that he is now e was a brother to him He that as may anked with the firstrate stallions stallionsHe it Eclipse was u marvel among horses but He that as it may yea verily be that as may whether he had really a drop of the blood of the Darley Arabian is something of which nobody can be of us moderns like that unfortunate foal of ertain Is it any wonder therefore tiiat a great many tetty Lcedes choke on the chaff out of which the pure exotic theory has been compounded V
