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 CHAPTER VI.

HOW TO BREED A HORSE—MODERN ARAB BLOOD.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN THOROUGH-BREDS DERIVED FROM ORIENTAL BLOOD—ARE NOW SUPERIOR TO THE MODERN ARABS—NOLAN ARAB. It is an indisputable fact, that all the excellence of the English and American thorough-bred horse is derived from Oriental blood of the desert, and originates, it is believed, in the admixture of the various breeds of the several countries to which the horse in its purest and highest form, has from remote ages been indigenous. These countries are Arabia, Syria, Persia, Turkistan, the Barbary States, Nubia and Abyssinia, all of which have races nearly connected with each other, but all possessing distinct characteristics. There would appear, of these races, to be in the English thorough-bred horse—with which the American is identical—a larger proportion of Barb than of pure Arabian blood. The celebrated Godolphin is generally considered by the most competent judges to have been a Barb. Fairfax's celebrated horse was a Barb; the royal mares imported by King Charles II., to which nine-tenths of our modern thorough-bred horses trace, were Tunisian or Tangier Barbs. The other most famous progenitors have been Turks, as the Byerly Turk, the Lyster, or straddling Turk, the D'Arcy yellow Turk, Plaice's white Turk, and many others. The most noted of the pure Arabians was the Darley [58]