border from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century, we are still
in the realm of traditions, and many of them very preposterous. The
deceptions practiced in nomenclature were so common as to be well-nigh
universal. Everybody who owned a foreign horse must have “Arabian”
attached to his name. To illustrate this evil and the misleading effects
flowing from it, I will give two instances of the most famous horses
in all English history. The Darley Arabian and the Godolphin Arabian
stand pre-eminent and before all others as progenitors of the English
race horse. The former of these two was purchased at Aleppo, in Asia
Minor, and brought to England in 1711, by Mr. Darley of Yorkshire who
secured him through a brother in trade in that region. He was the sire of
Flying Childers and many others, and his blood carried from generation
to generation. Aleppo is in Northern Syria and far distant from Arabia.
At one time it was embraced in Armenia Minor, the original home of the
horse, and adjoined Cappadocia and Cilicia, all famous for the excellence
of their horse stock more than two thousand years before there was a
single horse in Arabia. Upon the restoration of the ancient Theban line
of Pharaohs in Egypt, at the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, no time
was lost by Thutmosis I. in leading a great army into Northern Syria for
no other purpose that is apparent except to replenish and reinvigorate
the horse stock of Egypt, from the region of Aleppo and further east, for
this is the region from which they had secured their original stock. His
successors pursued the same course, year after year, and the number of
horses and chariots captured in battle, as well as the number of mares
sent as tribute by the frightened people, were duly recorded in the
annals of their achievements. If the Darley Arabian, so called, bore any
relationship whatever to the Arabian horse, it can only be established
by tracing him back to some one of the animals in Cappadocia that the
Emperor Constantius sent to Arabia in the year A.D. 356. A writer of
the seventeenth century, Dr. Alexander Bursell, in speaking of Aleppo,
says: “Formerly this part of the country was famous for fine horses; and
though many good ones are still bred here, it may be said they are much
degenerated.” This is the observation of an intelligent man, written and
published in 1756, about forty years after Mr. Darley’s horse was brought
from there.
The other illustration is that of Godolphin Arabian. As a progenitor of
race horses this was the greatest horse of his century, or indeed of any
other century in the history of the English race horse. He died in 1753,
and absolutely nothing is known of his origin or his early history. The
story is generally accepted, and I suppose is true, that he was bought
out of a cart in Paris, as an act of humanity, by a Mr. Coke, taken to
London, presented to Mr. Williams, the keeper of a coffee-house, and
passed from him to Lord Godolphin, who kept him till he died. The story
that he was presented to Louis XV. by the Bey of Tunis in 1731 has never
been verified in any manner, and breaks down on the vital point of date.
Some intelligent Englishmen insist that he _must have been_ an Arabian,
while others insist that he _must have been_ a Barb, while no man
_knows_ whether he was either one or the other. With the most prominent
horses of the nation and of their century thus used to mislead the public
mind as to their lineage, what are we to expect from the great ruck of
the obscure and less prominent? But, as a more elaborate and methodical
discussion of this topic will be found in the chapter on the English
and American Race Horse, we will now turn our attention to the actual
experiences with the Arabians in recent times.
When we come down to the present century we get into the era of
newspapers that really begun to give the news, and thus educate their
readers, not very authentically, but circumstantially, in what was
passing in the world in every department of knowledge and enterprise.
Under these wide sources of information, a few authentic experiences
will serve to illustrate the true status of the Arabian horse and his
influence, or lack of influence, on English and American horses. More
than twenty years ago the Prince of Wales made a royal progress through
Her Majesty’s dominions in the East. The enthusiasm was unbounded and he
was loaded down with many valuable presents, among them several elegant,
high-caste Arabian horses. It appears that some of these horses had
already won reputation and money on the turf, and were considered the
very best that could be found in the East. On their arrival they were
greatly admired and praised, especially by the sporting friends of the
prince, who seemed to have no doubt, nor did they conceal their opinions,
that they could beat any horses in all England. This was a conclusion
that a great many racing men, with longer memories, could not accept,
and after a good deal of diplomacy a match was finally concluded between
the prince’s best horse and an old horse that was third or fourth-class,
in his prime, but was unsound and liable to break down any time he was
extended. The prince was popular, had many supporters, and much money
was pending. The old horse was patched up as well as possible, the day
came, the race was started, and the old cripple was so much faster than
the Arab that his managers had the hardest work in the world to prevent
him from running clear away and disgracing the prince. This account of
the race I had from one of the most eminent and successful trainers
that England has produced. He witnessed the race and knew all the facts
concerning it. Notwithstanding the popularity of the prince and the
universal feeling of loyalty toward him, it was a long time before his
Arabs ceased to be a laughing-stock among horsemen.
Some sixteen or eighteen years ago, an English gentleman of wealth and
intelligence—Mr. Wilfrid S. Blunt—got it into his head that the way
to improve the English race horse was to secure fresh infusions of
pure Arabian blood. He was industrious in propagating his fad, in an
amateurish way, through the columns of the English newspapers, evincing
great zeal and a great lack of knowledge of the hundreds of experiments
in the same direction and in the history of his own country that had
proved disastrous. But he had a will of his own and a bank account that
enabled him to carry out his views to their own realization. In the
autumn of 1877 he made up a pleasant family party, consisting of his
wife, Lady Anne, and two of her lady friends and started for Arabia, with
the full determination to find the best and to buy nothing that was not
of the purest and best lineage that could be found in all that country.
Fortunately, Lady Anne carefully noted down everything that transpired in
their journeyings and after the return wrote a very pleasant and readable
book, understood to have been edited by her husband in some of its
features. The title of the book—“The Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates”—did
not strike me pleasantly, for I never knew that any of the numerous
Bedouin tribes were to be found on the Euphrates. But my purpose is not
to criticise either the book or its title, but to follow the party over
its itinerary and discover just where Mr. Blunt found the blood he was
looking for, and upon what evidence he accepted it as “the best blood.”
With this view I will carefully give his own language, so far as it
applies to the point in view.
His first purchase was at Aleppo, where he got a mare he named Hagar, as
he says, “for a very moderate sum.” “She was of the Kehilan-Ajuz breed.”
“When purchased she was in very poor condition, having just gone through
the severe training of a campaign.” “She was bred by the Gommussa, the
most able of the horse-breeding tribes, had passed from them to the
Roala, and had now been captured and ridden some two hundred miles, in
hot haste, for sale to Aleppo.” “We never met anything in our travels
that could compete with her over a distance, and she has often run down
foxes and even hares, without assistance, carrying thirteen stone on her
back.” This was the first experience of the English “tenderfoot” among
Syrian horsethieves. According to his own showing, he bought her from
the fellow who had stolen her and had ridden her two hundred miles to
escape, and he accepted what the thief told about the breeding of the
mare as true. The thief knew just what Mr. Blunt wanted and he shaped the
pedigree and tracing to suit the purchaser. Mr. Blunt had no knowledge of
this mare’s breeding, nor where she came from; still, her blood was to
become one of the great influences in renovating the English race horse.
This incident is of no importance, in itself, except as it illustrates
the universal conditions under which amateurs buy horses in the Orient.
Upon leaving Aleppo, the party traveled eastward till they struck the
Euphrates and then down the right bank of that river. The first town
of any importance was Deyr, on the river, and just across was ancient
Mesopotamia. They were still in the border land between the productive
north and the desert south, with the Syrian desert between them and the
Arabian desert. All this region is occupied with a mixture of races,
employed in varied pursuits, with but a feeble trace of tribal authority,
as all are under the direct government of the Sultan of Turkey.
“Deyr is well-known,” Mr. Blunt says, “as a horse market, and
is, perhaps, the only town north of the Jebel Shammar where
the inhabitants have any general knowledge of the blood and
breeding of the beasts they possess. The townsmen, indeed, are
but a single step removed from the Bedouins, their undoubted
ancestors. They usually purchase their colts as yearlings
either from the Gomussa, or some of the Sabaa tribes, and
having broken them thoroughly, sell them at three years old
to the Aleppo merchants. They occasionally, too, have mares
left with them, in partnership, by the Anazah, and from
these they breed according to the strictest desert rules. It
is, therefore, for a stranger, by far the best market for
thoroughbreds in Asia, and you may get some of the best blood
at Deyr that can be found anywhere, besides having a guarantee
of its authenticity, impossible, under ordinary circumstances,
to get at Damascus or Aleppo. There are, I may say, no horses
at Deyr but thoroughbreds.”
He made some purchases at Deyr and then they pursued their journey down
the river, and at the most convenient point he crossed over to Bagdad,
on the Tigris. Here he inspected the stud of the Turkish pasha, but the
prices were high and he seemed to lack confidence in the purity of their
breeding. Whatever the cause, he made no purchases, and soon started
on his journey up the Tigris. Upon reaching Sherghat on the Tigris,
he turned westward, and crossing ancient Mesopotamia, he was again at
Deyr, where he seems to have made more purchases, and then started, in
a southwesterly direction, with eighteen mares and two stallions for
Damascus and the coast. This closed the search of Arabia for Arabian
horses of the highest caste and purest blood, without really being in
Arabia, and this is all that can be said of “The Bedouin Tribes of the
Euphrates”—without having seen a real Bedouin.
No doubt Mr. Blunt thinks he is right in his high appreciation of
the town of Deyr as a horse market; that it is “the best market for
thoroughbreds in Asia;” and that “there are no horses in Deyr but
thoroughbreds,” or he would not have bought his horses there. Dealing
in horses seems to be the principal business of the people, they are
all well informed on the best and purest strains of blood, according to
Mr. Blunt, and all their own horses are thoroughbred. Truly an ideal
market, an ideal people, and ideal horses, just suited to the needs
of enthusiastic amateurs like Mr. Blunt. This remarkable horse town
is located on the border between the rich grain fields and luxuriant
meadows on the north, and the comparatively barren deserts of the south.
On the north the country has been famous for thousands of years for the
great numbers and excellence of the horses produced, and they are still
produced of excellent form and quality, and are sold at very low prices.
On the south is the land of the camel, and but few horses and those few
held at high prices, and the simple term “Arabian horse” always brings
them purchasers. Here, then, we find that Deyr is the very paradise of
horse traders—a tribe, wherever we find them on the face of the earth,
distinguished for elasticity of conscience. The north furnishes the
horses and the south furnishes the pedigrees, and no wonder the Deyrites
had nothing but “thoroughbreds” when Mr. Blunt came along. In the line
of their business and from their southern neighbors, they had picked up
enough “Arabian horse talk” to satisfy all inexperienced buyers that
they knew all about the value of the different strains of Arabian blood,
and could supply them from their own studs, at very reasonable prices.
And thus Mr. Blunt brought home to England eighteen “Arabian” mares and
two stallions, without any satisfactory evidence that they ever had seen
Arabia. In this enthusiastic venture, resulting in utter failure, there
is one alleviating fact that Mr. Blunt can call to mind, and that is that
his horses were just as good for the purpose of improving the English
race horse as any others that have been brought from the Orient in the
past hundred years. Whatever their blood, whether genuine or counterfeit
Arabians, they have all alike been failures, and all alike good for
nothing.
Early in the history of our own government it became not an unusual
thing for the Sultan of Turkey, the Emperor of Morocco, or some other
potentate of the Saracenic races, to present to the President two horses,
and as they were presents from royalty to what they esteemed royalty,
they were necessarily of the highest caste and of the greatest value of
any horses in all their dominions. It is probable that Mr. Jefferson
was the first president to receive these royal gifts, and under the
requirements of the constitution and without any disrespect to the donor,
he ordered them to be sold to the highest bidder, and turned the money
into the treasury. Several of the presidents received these presents of
horses, and without knowing the fact, I will presume disposed of them
the same way. In the case of President Lincoln, Mr. Seward seemed to
be more highly favored and the sultan sent the horses to him. Through
the State Agricultural Society, Mr. Seward presented his royal presents
to the State of New York. My recollection is not very distinct, but
my impression is that Mr. Van Buren had disposed of his in the same
way. When General Grant received his, he was not in public office and
hence they became his personal property. A number of the first of these
importations, together with some others that were brought from Arabia,
individually and by private persons, were, in the early part of the
century, carried into the South, which was then the “race-horse region,”
but the breeders there very soon discovered that in breeding from them
they were taking a backward instead of a forward step. Their progeny
could neither run nor trot, and as they were too small for the ordinary
uses of the farmer and planter, they were almost unanimously rejected,
with nothing left but the ignorant “fad” that was embodied in the name
“Arabian.”
The most notable example of the folly of attempting to regenerate the
American race horse by the introduction of the “blood of the desert”
is furnished in the sad experience of the late A. Keene Richards, of
Kentucky. He inherited a large estate, and when he came into possession
he proved himself an intelligent and successful breeder, and ran the
colts of his own breeding, with a full share of winnings. He was not a
spendthrift nor a gambler, but he was not content with mediocrity in
sharing triumphs with his neighbors, for he was ambitious to beat, them
all. He soon had his head full of such horses as the Darley Arabian and
the Godolphin Arabian, and he argued if that blood founded the English
race horse, he would go to Arabia and get it, and it could not fail to
regenerate the American race horse. He did not stop to inquire whether
either of his great ideals might have had a drop of Arabian blood in his
veins, but he started for Arabia at once. He brought home a few stallions
and felt sure he was on the eve of the greatest triumph of his life. When
the half-Arab produce of his strong and elegantly bred race mares were
old enough to run the jockey club allowed the half-breeds seven pounds
the advantage in weight and they were beaten. The club then allowed them
fourteen pounds and they were again beaten; and finally the allowance was
raised to twenty-one pounds, and they were still in the rear rank. Under
these humiliating defeats a careful man would have hesitated before he
went further, but he at once jumped to the conclusion that his defeat
was not in the fact that Arab blood could not run fast enough to win,
but in the fact, as he supposed, that the rascally Arabs had sold him
blood that was not Arab blood. In a short time he was off for Arabia
again, taking with him as companion and adviser the distinguished animal
painter, Troye, who had a long and successful experience as a delineator
of race horses and knew all about the anatomy of the horse. They spent
several months among the different tribes, and in order to get “inside
of the ring,” as it were, they ate with the Arabs, slept with the Arabs,
and worshiped with the Arabs, as Mr. Richards told me himself. They came
home full of the highest expectations, bringing several mares as well as
stallions with them, and fully assured that every one was of the highest
caste and the best form for racing that could be found on all the plains
of the desert. After the foals of this importation were old enough to
start in the stakes, they were given the same advantages in weight as
before, and they proved no better than the first lot. Poor Mr. Richards
was crushed in spirits, not only by the vanishing of his air castles,
but by the importunacy of his creditors. In his heroic, but misguided,
efforts to improve the American race horse by infusions of pure Arabian
blood, he involved his once handsome estate, and he died hopelessly
insolvent. He had bred a number of pure Arabs of several generations, but
the abundant feed and luxuriant blue grass of Kentucky did not increase
their size, for when they came under the auctioneer’s hammer they were
but little “tackeys,” and they brought only the price of little “tackeys.”
The number of horses brought to this country, whether as gifts to
statesmen or as private ventures, and called “Arabians,” is not very
large, and it is safe to say that not one in ten of them ever saw Arabia.
They came from Turkey or some of the Barbary States. But in the case
of Mr. Richards there can be no doubt that he made his selections in
Arabia itself. Those selections having been made personally and with
care and skill, we are bound to accept them as genuine Arabians. When
we find, therefore, that having been tested they are no better than the
horses brought from Turkey or from Africa, we must conclude that the
whole scheme is mere moonshine, and that Arabian blood as a means of
improvement has failed to develop the value that enthusiasts and dreamers
have claimed for it since “time whereof the memory of man runneth not to
the contrary.” Practical and thinking men always judge of the value of
a breed of horses from what the representatives of that breed can do or
what they fail to do. The emotional and unpractical are always looking
for an ideal horse, and the poets and story writers are always furnishing
them one. Where a horse figures in a story he is uniformly endowed with
an almost supernatural intelligence and sense. To finish up the ideal
horse, he always traces back to the “Courser of the Desert.” If his
triumph is in a flight of speed, he distances all competitors because
he is a pure Arabian. The story of “Ben Hur,” written by General Lew
Wallace, furnishes a fitting illustration of this tendency of the public
mind. The story of the chariot race at Antioch is a masterpiece of most
exciting ingenuity, and one of the finest specimens of word painting in
the English language. The irascible old sheik is quite overdrawn, but the
judgment and skill of Ben Hur cannot be surpassed. As a matter of course,
the team of black Arabians was bound to win. Every bright schoolboy in
the country has read the story, and he has joined in the triumph of the
black Arabians. The wide interest in the chariot race seemed to demand
its pictorial delineation, and soon the public was gratified with a large
and elegant etching, which hangs before me as I write. The only trouble
about this excellent work of the imagination and the team of black
Arabians is that there were no horses in Arabia till about three hundred
and fifty years after the date of this supposed scene. We must let the
poets sing and the novelists work out their plots, but it is well to pay
some attention to the facts and experiences of history.
[Illustration: GODOLPHIN ARABIAN.
A true portrait taken from life by D. Murrier, painter to H. R. H. the
Duke of Cumberland.]
[Illustration: GODOLPHIN ARABIAN.
A distorted copy by Mr. Stubbs who never saw the horse, and changed to
express the idea of fleetness.]
CHAPTER V.
THE ENGLISH RACE HORSE.
The real origin of the English race horse in confusion—Full
list of the “foundation stock” as given by Mr. Weatherby one
hundred years ago—The list complete and embraces all of any
note—Admiral Rous’ extravaganza—Godolphin Arabian’s origin
wholly unknown—His history—Successful search for his true
portrait—Stubbs’ picture a caricature—The true portrait alone
supplies all that is known of his origin and blood.
The English Race Horse is the great central figure of all the horse
literature of the past two hundred years. Much has been claimed for him
and much has been written about him, in a haphazard way, by people who
know but little of the subject. A few men of independent and real thought
have written on this subject, but they have devoted their attention to
the comparing of family with family or individual with individual. Of
the books that have been written by brainless people on the English
horse there is no end, and they are generally mere repetitions, without
giving credit, of what somebody has said before. Among all the books
that have been written on this subject I have never yet found one that
even pretended to make a serious attempt at discovering the real origin
of the English Race Horse. They all seem to agree with Admiral Rous that
he is purely descended from the Arabian horse, and without one drop of
the blood of the indigenous English horse. The average writer for the
two past centuries has been content with just this much knowledge, and
he wants nothing more. Occasionally it is modestly suggested in some
magazine article that this exclusively Arabian origin may not be true,
and I am glad to note that these suggestions are becoming more frequent
of late years. It has been claimed that the pure Arabian origin of the
race horse “is as solid as a pyramid,” all of which may be accepted—but,
unfortunately for the claimant, the “pyramid” is standing on its apex,
and when the facts breathe upon it, as gently as a zephyr, it will topple
over. The most convenient and the most authoritative collection of facts
relating to the earliest exotic horses that were brought in is to be
found in the English Stud Book itself, and as but few of my readers have
access to this work, I will copy that portion of it entire, as it appears
in the first volume, and the edition of 1803. In the edition of 1808 the
list was reprinted with four additional animals and some verbal changes,
which, when important, will be noted.
“ARABIANS, BARBS AND TURKS.”
1. The Helmsley Turk was an old Duke of Buckingham’s and got
Bustler, etc.
2. Place’s White Turk was the property of Mr. Place, studmaster
to Oliver Cromwell, when Protector, and was the sire of
Wormwood Commoner, and the great grandams of Windham, Grey
Ramsden and Cartouch.
3. Royal Mares: King Charles the Second sent abroad the master
of the horse, to procure a number of foreign horses and mares
for breeding, and the mares brought over by him (as also many
of their produce) have since been called Royal Mares.
4. Dodsworth, though foaled in England, was a natural Barb.
His dam, a Barb mare, was imported in the time of Charles
the Second, and was called a Royal Mare. She was sold by the
studmaster, after the king’s death, for forty guineas, at
twenty years old, when in foal (by the Helmsley Turk) with
Vixen, dam of the Old Child Mare.
5. The Stradling or Lister Turk was brought into England by the
Duke of Berwick, from the siege of Buda, in the reign of James
the Second. He got Snake, the D. of Kingston’s Brisk and Piping
Peg, Coneyskins, the dam of Hip, and the grandam of Bolton
Sweepstakes.
6. The Byerly Turk was Captain Byerly’s charger in Ireland,
in King William’s wars (1869, etc.). He did not cover many
bred mares, but was the sire of D. of Kingston’s Sprite, who
was thought nearly as good as Leedes; the D. of Rutland’s
Black Hearty and Archer, and the D. of Devonshire’s Basto, Ld.
Bristol’s Grasshopper, and Ld. Godolphin’s Byerly Gelding,
all in good forms: Halloway’s Jigg, a middling horse; and
Knightley’s Mare, in a very good form.
7. Greyhound. The cover of this foal was in Barbary, after
which both his sire and dam were purchased, and brought into
England by Mr. Marshall. He was got by King William’s White
Barb Chillaby, out of Slugey, a natural Barb Mare. Greyhound
got the D. of Wharton’s Othello, said to have beat Chanter
easily in a trial, giving him a stone, but who, falling lame,
ran only one match in public, against a bad horse; he also got
Panton’s Whitefoot, a very good horse; Osmyn, a very fleet
horse and in good form for his size; the D. of Wharton’s Rake,
a middling horse; Ld. Halifax’s Sampson, Goliah and Favorite,
pretty good 12-stone Plate horses; Desdemona, and other good
mares, and several ordinary Plate horses, who ran in the North
where he was a common stallion and covered many of the best
mares.
8. The D’Arcy White Turk was the sire of Old Hautboy, Grey
Royal, Cannon, etc.
9. The D’Arcy Yellow Turk was the sire of Spanker, Brimmer, and
the great-great-grandam of Cartouch.
10. The Marshall or Selaby Turk was the property of Mr.
Marshall’s brother, studmaster to King William, Queen Anne, and
King George the first. He got the Curwen Old Spot, the dam of
Windham, the dam of Derby Ticklepitcher, and great-grandam of
Bolton Sloven and Fearnought.
11. Curwen’s Bay Barb was a present to Louis the Fourteenth
from Muley Ishmael, King of Morocco, and was brought into
England by Mr. Curwen, who being in France when Count Byram
and Count Thoulouse (two natural sons of Louis the Fourteenth)
were, the former, master of the horse, and the latter an
admiral, he procured of them two Barb horses, both of which
proved excellent stallions, and were well known by the names
of the Curwen Bay Barb and the Thoulouse Barb. Curwen’s Bay
Barb got Mixbury and Tantivy, both very excellent formed
Galloways. The first of them was only thirteen hands two
inches high, and yet there were not more than two horses of
his time that could beat him at light weights. Brocklesby,
Little George, Yellow Jack, Bay Jack, Monkey, Dangerfield, Hip,
Peacock, and Flatface, the first two in good forms, the rest
middling; two Mixburys, full brothers to the first Mixbury,
middling Galloways; Long Meg, Brocklesby Betty, and Creeping
Molly, extraordinarily high-formed mares; Whiteneck, Mistake,
Sparkler, and Lightfoot, very good mares, and several middling
Galloways, who ran for Plates in the North. He got two full
sisters to Mixbury, one of which bred Partner, Little Scar,
Soreheels and the dam of Crab; the other was the dam of Quiet,
Silver Eye and Hazard. He did not cover many mares except Mr.
Curwen’s and Mr. Pelham’s.
12. The Thoulouse Barb became afterward the property of Sir J.
Parsons and was the sire of Bagpiper, Blacklegs, Mr. Panton’s
Molly, and the dam of Cinnamon.
13. Darley’s Arabian was brought over by a brother of Mr.
Darley, of Yorkshire, who, being an agent in merchandise
abroad, became member of a hunting club, by which means he
acquired interest to procure this horse. He was the sire
of Childers, and also got Almanzor, a very good horse; a
white-legged horse of the D. of Somerset’s, full brother to
Almanzor, and thought to be as good, but meeting with an
accident, he never ran in public; Cupid and Brisk, good horses;
Dædalus, a very swift horse; Dart, Shipjack, Maica and Aleppo,
good Plate horses, though out of bad mares; Ld. Lonsdale’s
Mare in very good form, and Ld. Tracy’s Mare in a good one for
Plates. He covered very few mares except Mr. Darley’s, who had
very few well-bred mares besides Almanzor’s Dam.
14. Sir J. William’s Turk (more commonly called the Honeywood
Arabian) got Mr. Honeywood’s two True Blues; the elder of them
was the best Plate horse in England, for four or five years;
the younger was in very high form and got the Rumford Gelding,
and Ld. Onslow’s Grey Horse, middling horses out of road mares.
It is not known that this Turk covered any bred mares except
the dam of the two True Blues.
15. The Belgrade Turk was taken at the siege of Belgrade, by
Gen. Merci, and sent by him to the Prince de Craon, from whom
he was a present to the Prince of Lorraine. He was afterward
purchased by Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, and died in his possession
about 1740.
16. Croft’s Bay Barb was got by Chillaby, out of the Moonah
Barb Mare.
17. The Godolphin Arabian was imported by Mr. Coke, at whose
death he became (together with Cade, Regulus, etc., then young)
the property of Ld. Godolphin. His first employment was that
of a teaser to Hobgoblin, who, refusing to cover Roxana, she
was put to the Arabian, and from that cover produced Lath, the
first of his get. He was also sire of Cade, Regulus, Blank,
etc., and what is considered very remarkable, as well as a
strong proof of his excellence as a stallion, there is not a
superior horse now on the turf without a cross of the Godolphin
Arabian, neither has there been for several years past. He was
a brown bay, with no white, except on the off heel behind, and
about fifteen hands high (a picture of him is in the library at
Gog Magog, Cambridgeshire). It is not known to what particular
race of the Arab breed, indeed it has been asserted that he was
a Barb. He died at Gog Magog in 1753, in or about the 29th year
of his age. The story of his playfellow, the black cat, must
not be omitted here, especially as an erroneous account has got
abroad, copied from the first introduction to the present work.
Instead of his grieving for the loss of the cat she survived
him, though but for a short time; she sat upon him after he
was dead in the building erected for him, and followed him to
the place where he was buried under a gateway near the running
stable; sat upon him there till he was buried, then went away,
and never was seen again, till found dead in the hayloft.
18. The Cullen Arabian was brought over by Mr. Nosco and was
sire of Mr. Warren’s Camillus, Ld. Orford’s Matron, Mr. Gorges’
Sour Face, the dam of Regulator, etc., etc.
19. The Coomb Arabian (sometimes called the Pigot Arabian
and sometimes the Bolingbroke Grey Arabian) was the sire of
Methodist, the dam of Crop, etc., etc.
20. The Compton Barb, more commonly called the Sedley Arabian,
was sire of Coquette, Greyling, etc.
(ADDITIONS IN 1808 EDITION.)
21. King James the First bought an Arabian of Mr. Markham, a
merchant, for 500gs., said (but with little probability) to
have been the first of the breed ever seen in England. The Duke
of Newcastle says, in his treatise on Horsemanship, that he had
seen the above Arabian, and describes him as a small bay horse,
and not of very excellent shape.
23. Bloody Buttocks; nothing further can be traced from the
papers of the late Mr. Crofts than that he was a grey Arabian,
with a red mark on his hip, from whence he derived his name.
23. The Vernon Arabian was a small chestnut horse. He covered
at Highflyer Hall, and was the sire of Alert, etc. Alert had
good speed for a short distance.
24 & 25. The Wellesley Grey, and Chestnut Arabians (so called)
were brought from the East, but evidently not Arabians. The
former was a horse of good shape, with the size and substance
of an English hunter.
This list of twenty-seven different animals, which for the sake of
convenience I have numbered, was presented to the public more than
a hundred years ago by Mr. Weatherby, the highest of all English
authorities, as the foundation stock from which the English race horse
was propagated. The uniform omission of dates of importations, etc.,
discloses the fact that the compiler had no accurate knowledge of the
animals or their history, and that he was dependent largely upon very
uncertain traditions for his information. It must not be understood that
the animals in this list were contemporaneous, or that the list embraces
all the foreign animals that were brought in, but only those that were
recognized as of value in founding the breed.
To understand just what we have to consider, I will place here, in
juxtaposition to the above list, the remark of Admiral Rous, at one
time the great race-horse authority of England, which expresses the
popular opinion as to the origin of the race horse, that is practically
universally held in all lands. The admiral says: “The British race horse
is a pure Eastern exotic whose pedigree may be traced two thousand years,
the true son of Arabia Deserta, without a drop of English blood.” To
reach the approximate truth on the issue here made, and to puncture this
extravaganza is the work now before us.
Numbers 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, were Turks, and to these we may
add Mr. Darley’s horse, known as the Darley Arabian, number 13, for he
was brought from Aleppo in Turkey, far removed from Arabia, and famous
for the great numbers and excellence of its horses many centuries before
Arabia had any horses. To carry horses, for sale, from the deserts of
Arabia, where they are scarce, to the region of Aleppo, where they are
very plenty, and of the highest quality, would be simply “carrying coals
to Newcastle.” We may therefore safely conclude that the ten horses here
enumerated were Turks.
Numbers 4, 7, 11, 12, 16, 20 were Barbs, as they are named in the list.
It is a surprise to me that these six horses should be designated as
“Barbs,” for it has been the usage of many generations to call these
horses “Arabians.” As late as 1819 the Dey of Algiers sent several
Algerine horses as a present to the Prince Regent of England, and they
were always spoken of as “Arabians.”
Numbers 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 are all unsatisfactory as to their
origin. Number 17—Lord Godolphin’s horse—is wholly unknown as to his
blood elements, and further on his history will be considered. Number 18
“was brought over,” but from whence nobody knows. Number 19 is in the
same condition, and not one of his different owners has been able to
tell us anything about his origin. Number 21 was, possibly, an Arabian,
but the Duke of Newcastle, who knew the horse well, seems to have doubted
his genuineness on account of his inferiority. However this may have
been, he preceded other importations so many years that it is not known
that he ever sired a colt, and as a progenitor we may as well strike
him out. Number 22 seems to be in darkness, and all efforts to find his
origin having failed he may as well be classed as unknown. Number 23
is furnished with no evidence that he was entitled to be classed as an
Arabian. Numbers 24 and 25 were confessedly not genuine.
This reduces the analysis to its lowest form and shows that in the
original foundation stock, including Mr. Darley’s horse (13), there were
ten Turks and six Barbs that can be accepted with reasonable certainty.
This leaves eight so-called “Arabians,” from which we must eliminate
numbers 17, 21, 24, 25, leaving numbers 18, 19, 22, 23, without any
evidence whatever that they were Arabians except in name. From these four
rather obscure animals, therefore, according to the Rous dictum, the
English race horse must have derived every drop of his blood; and yet
there is not a scintilla of evidence either direct or inferential that
any one of them, or the ancestors of any one of them, ever saw Arabia.
From the custom of calling every horse from abroad an “Arabian,” that
has prevailed in England for more than two hundred years, it is fair to
conclude that there was no Arabian blood in the foundation stock. It
was the blood of the Turks and the Barbs, commingled with that of the
native blood that had been bred to race for centuries, that furnished the
foundation of the modern English and American race horse.
Blood in the race horse is an imperative necessity, but it must be blood
that has been carefully selected from winners, and raced for generations,
or it is of no value as an element of speed. If the English race horse
had been a strictly pure exotic from Arabia Deserta, as Admiral Rous
maintained, he would have been of no value either as a race horse or the
progenitor of race horses, without many generations of careful selection
and development of speed.
The Godolphin Arabian was altogether the greatest horse of his century.
He flourished during most of the reign of King George II., but the
horsemen of the world, even Englishmen themselves, know far more about
him than they do about the reign of that monarch. Still, nobody knows
anything of his birthplace, his origin or his blood. He was to the
English race horse what Rysdyk’s Hambletonian has been to the American
trotter. Neither of them was ever in a race, but each of them stood
immeasurably superior to all others of his day as a progenitor of speed,
at his own gait. From the latter we had reason to expect speed because we
knew he inherited speed, but from the former we had no reason to expect
anything, for we knew nothing of what he inherited until he proved his
inheritance by what he transmitted to his progeny. Some of the principal
semi-tragic incidents, so far as known in the early life of Godolphin
Arabian, were seized upon by the great novelist Eugene Sue, and out of
them grew a “horse novel” from his gifted pen. The horse was foaled
about 1724, was brought to England from France about 1730, and died
at Magog Hills, 1753. There seems to be a substantial agreement among
those who had the best opportunities to know that the horse was employed
on the streets of Paris as a common drudge in a cart and driven by a
brutal master. A Mr. Coke, who is represented to have been a Quaker, was
in Paris on business and he happened to witness the brutality of the
ruffian who was this horse’s master in trying to make him draw a load
of wood up a steep acclivity on to a new bridge, which the horse after
repeated trials and clubbings was unable to accomplish. To relieve the
poor brute from his sufferings, Mr. Coke’s feelings of humanity asserted
themselves, and he stepped forward and bought the horse on the spot and
had him released from the cart. Mr. Coke, it is said, brought the horse
to London and presented him to Mr. Williams, the proprietor of a famous
coffee-house, and Mr. Williams presented him to Earl Godolphin.
In September, 1829, Mr. John S. Skinner commenced the publication of the
first horse magazine that ever appeared in this country, and in the first
number there appeared a steel engraving purporting to be executed by the
famous Stubbs and to represent the great horse, Godolphin Arabian. Not
many years afterward I came into possession of a copy of this publication
from the beginning, and the sight of this picture always impressed me
as the most ludicrous abortion of the likeness of a horse that could be
conceived of. The neck was absolutely longer than the body, the legs
were about strong enough for a sheep, and all over it lacked strength of
both muscle and bone to a most absurd extent. When this picture appeared
in London, some years before, it was laughed at by all artists as
well as by all men who knew anything about the shape of a horse, as a
monstrosity, and it was received in the same spirit on this side of the
water; but it bore the name of a great artist and that was sufficient to
secure the approbation of the unthinking and the unknowing. The only key
to the origin of the horse, the only pedigree that can be given, must be
found written in his own structure of bone and muscle and brain. A true
delineation, therefore, of his form and shape became a matter of the
highest moment, not merely to satisfy the curiosity of the curious, but
as a study of the true sources of his wonderful prepotency.
Sixty-five years ago a correspondent of Mr. Skinner’s magazine, referred
to above, and a descendant of Mr. Samuel Galloway of Maryland, spoke of
an oil painting of Godolphin Arabian that had hung in the hall at Tulip
Hill from the days of his childhood as still hanging there, and said
that it was wholly unlike the Stubbs engraving. Mr. Galloway was one of
Maryland’s land barons, an enthusiastic horse breeder, and a successful
horse racer. He was educated at Cambridge, I think; and if so, no doubt
he saw Godolphin Arabian many times before he died, for he was within
four or five miles of him, and his sporting instincts could not fail to
take him to see so great a horse when so near at hand. As he was a young
man of great wealth and great ambitions, it is quite probable he was on
terms of friendly acquaintance, if not intimacy, with Lord Godolphin, and
thus secured the oil painting from that distinguished friend himself.
This theory is strengthened by the fact that the picture still bears the
coat of arms of Lord Godolphin.
To reach and secure this picture, or at least a faithful copy of it,
became an object of continuous effort that was never intermitted for
more than twenty years. At last, in the spring of 1877, one of the
correspondents of _Wallace’s Monthly_, Prof. M. C. Ellzey, of Blacksburg,
Virginia, wrote me that the picture was then the property of Dr. J. H.
Murray (whose wife was a lineal descendant of Mr. Galloway) of Cedar
Park, adjoining Tulip Hill, West River, Maryland, and that he would have
the picture sent to me. In a few days it arrived, and when my eyes rested
upon it, it was like the feast of a lifetime; for there was all that
could ever be known of the greatest horse of his century. The painting
was in a state of excellent preservation and the coat of arms of Lord
Godolphin was plainly traceable. The horse is shown from his right
side, in his rough, paddock condition, with his right hind foot a little
advanced, and his head low and without any animation or excitement. The
standpoint of the artist is a little forward of the shoulders, and he
must have been a tall man or the horse must have been a low horse, or
perhaps both, for he sees over the horse and portrays the fine spring
of muscle over the loin, on the opposite side of the vertebra. From the
position of the artist the drawing is slightly foreshortened, and this,
together with the advance of his right hind foot, intensifies the droop
of the rump, to some degree, in the outline. From the proportions, as
shown in the painting, I would conclude he was below fourteen and a half
hands high rather than above it. His head is striking and unusually
large for an animal of his size, with remarkable width between the
eyes, and without a star to lighten it up. His ear is not fine, and it
droops backward as he stands, as if half-asleep. His mane is sparse and
in disorder. His throat-latch is very good, and the windpipe large and
well developed. The neck is of a fair length for a horse of his blocky
formation, and there is nothing unusual about it except its great depth
at the collar place. The slope of the shoulder is very marked and shows
his ability to carry his head in the air when he wished to do so, but the
shoulder itself is coarse and angular to an unusual degree. His withers
rise very abruptly and there is great perpendicular depth through the
carcass at this point. His back is remarkably short and the spread and
arch of his loins is simply magnificent. But the point of superlative
excellence is in the remarkable development of power in his quarters.
His limbs, instead of being “spider legs,” are unusually strong for an
animal of his size; indeed, they might be considered coarse for any horse
that was pretended to be a race horse. His tail is of the usual weight
and somewhat wavy. With the addition that there is a little white at
the coronet of the right hind foot, and not forgetting his friend and
companion the cat, I have made a somewhat detailed description of what is
represented in the painting. Several artists examined the picture, and
they pronounced it the work of an artist of ability and experience. The
signature “D. M. pinxt” was carefully examined, but no one was able to
throw any light upon the name represented by the initial letters “D. M.”
While this painting contained within itself evidence of its great value
as a likeness of its subject, it lacked confirmation as “true to the
life;” and nothing could supply this lack but to find a portrait of the
same horse, painted by another artist, and then if the two agreed, the
proof would be fully satisfying to the understanding. A little over a
hundred years ago Lord Francis Godolphin Osborne, Duke of Leeds, and heir
to Lord Godolphin, wrote Sir Charles Bunbury, a great race-horse man,
that he had a painting of Godolphin Arabian, by Wootton, at Gog Magog
Hills. Over sixty years ago an American gentleman wrote to Mr. Skinner’s
magazine that he had seen a painting of Godolphin Arabian hanging in
Houghton Hall, Norfolk. In 1878 my physician told me I must quit work
for awhile, and that I had better visit the great Exposition at Paris
that year. I was anxious to see the Fair, but I was a great deal more
anxious to see those two paintings of Godolphin Arabian, if they were
still in existence. Gog Magog Hills is a quaint old place, and the origin
and meaning of its name is lost in a very remote antiquity. As it has
not been the residence of its owners for more than a hundred years, it
is much neglected. The people in charge were very obliging, and I was
immediately admitted to the view of Wootton’s painting of Godolphin
Arabian. The first glance was a complete vindication of the truthfulness
of the Maryland painting as a true likeness in every important feature
of the outline and proportions. The canvas is about four and a half by
four feet, inclosed in a massive frame. After studying it and comparing
it, point by point for more than an hour, with a copy of the Maryland
painting, it became evident they were not painted by the same hand,
although the horse had the same position in both pictures, with the
exception that the right hind foot was thrown backward in the Wootton
painting instead of forward, and thus gave a less abrupt droop of the
rump. The head was precisely the same shape, but in the large painting
the articulations were less distinct and expressive.
After a little peregrination through Norfolk, studying the “Norfolk
Trotter” as then called, but since called “Hackney,” on his “native
heath,” I reached Houghton Hall, in Norfolk. This grand old place was
built over a hundred and sixty years ago by the famous Sir Robert
Walpole, and at that time it was considered the most splendid structure,
as a gentleman’s country seat, in all England. For many years it has been
the property of the Marquis of Cholmondeley, but is not often occupied as
a residence. Here too, I was lucky, for upon my entrance to the picture
gallery, about the first object upon which my eye rested was the painting
of the Godolphin Arabian, and the first impression was that there must
be “spooks” around, for that seemed certainly the Maryland picture I was
looking at. I had it taken down and removed to a good light, and there
the whole mystery was removed. It is difficult to compare two peas. All
you can say about them is that they were just alike, and that is all I
can say about the Galloway picture in Maryland and the Houghton Hall
picture in England. The paintings were the same size, and the pigments
used were of precisely the same shades of color and quality. The colors
were peculiar in the fact that the artist had used no varnish nor oil
that would leave a shiny appearance. The Houghton Hall picture had a
black, glossy margin all around it of about five inches in width on
which the names of the most noted of his progeny were inscribed in gold
letters, and at the bottom was this inscription: “The original picture
taken at The Hills, by D. Murrier, painter to H. R. H. the Duke of
Cumberland.” This explained the modest signature attached to the Maryland
picture, which was a replica of the original. “The Hills” is the local
designation of “Gog Magog Hills.” The word “original” not only implies
that the picture was made from life, but that one or more replicas were
made at the same time.
Here, then, in this picture, we have all that we know or probably ever
will know of the origin and pedigree of this horse. It does not tell
us what he was, but it does tell us in the most clear and unmistakable
language what he was not. There is no feature nor element in his make-up
that does not say that he was neither an Arabian nor a Barb. He was a
stout, strong-boned, heavily muscled, short-legged horse. In his form and
shape he was very far removed from an ideal progenitor of race horses,
but he was that progenitor all the same. About forty years after his
death Mr. Stubbs, who never saw the horse, brought out a painting of
him which all artists laughed at as the picture of an impossible horse.
This picture, however, was engraved on steel and became the standard
representation of Godolphin Arabian, in England, till this day. Both
these pictures are here given, and a comparison of many points makes
it evident that Stubbs copied from the original of Murrier or from the
painting by Wootton, which was probably also a copy of Murrier, and
he followed his copy just as closely as he could while converting a
big-boned, stout saddle horse into a long-necked, spindle-shanked race
horse. By actual measurement the neck is longer than the body, but it is
not necessary to point out the Stubbs absurdities, as they are apparent
to every eye. It was simply an awkward and dishonest attempt to express
in his form and shape such a pedigree as a great racing sire should have
had. In these two pictures we have the real and the imaginary—the honest
and the dishonest.
The search for this picture and then for its verification was a labor
of many years. I never expected to find the horse’s origin, but the
discovery of his likeness seemed to be in the bounds of a possibility
that was finally realized. Murrier’s picture, as a mere work of art, is
of no mean value. It contains within itself undoubted evidence that it
is a true picture of a horse, and it is shown circumstantially that this
horse was the great “unknown and untraced founder” of the English race
horse, with nothing of the race horse in his appearance.
The name of this horse has been a misnomer ever since the day he fell
into the hands of Lord Godolphin, and it has misled a multitude of men
to their financial hurt. Of late years the more intelligent class of
writers, instead of calling him an “Arabian” call him a “Barb,” but
there is just as much propriety in using one name as the other, and not
a scintilla of authority for using either. Whatever may have been his
origin, his marvelous structural combination of propelling power supplied
what was wanting in the English stock of his day, and gave him success.
Since then thousands of Arabians and Barbs have been tried and all of
them have failed.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ENGLISH RACE HORSE (_Continued_).
England supplied with horses before the Christian era—Bred
for different purposes—Markham on the speed of early native
horses—Duke of Newcastle on Arabians—His choice of blood to
propagate—Size of early English horses—Difficulties about
pedigrees in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Early
accumulations very trashy—The Galloways and Irish
Hobbies—Discrepancies in size—The old saddle stock—The pacers
wiped out—Partial revision of the English Stud Book.
Britain was fully supplied with horses when first invaded by the Romans,
but as there is no history beyond that period we are only groping in
the dark when we attempt to discover when or whence this supply was
procured. The most reasonable theory is that the first supply came
from the Phœnician merchants, when they were trading for tin in the
southwestern part of Britain. If this theory be correct, the trading
between the Phœnicians and the Britons could hardly have been later than
the fourth century before the Christian era, and it is more probable
that it was several centuries earlier. This topic, however, has been
considered in a preceding chapter. Another theory is that when the tides
of migration struck the Atlantic, in the higher latitudes, there was a
natural deflection toward the warmer countries of the south, the people
carrying their horses with them. But from the primitive condition of
the arts and of maritime affairs among the Norsemen of that very early
period, and from the insular position of Britain, it seems to me that to
reach it with horses, the most probable source of supply was from that
great nation whose “ships of Tarshish” had been trading to all lands more
than a thousand years before the Christian era. But, laying all theories
aside, there are some facts and dates that we know, and the particular
one to which I wish here to call attention is the historical record that
when the Romans first visited Britain they found an abundant supply of
horses; and this was about four hundred years before Arabia received her
supply from the Emperor Constantius.
From the time of the Romans in Britain, horse-racing has been a popular
and favorite amusement of our ancestors, and from that time horses have
been bred for special purposes. The “Great Horse,” as he was called, was
bred for war, parade, and show, and was large enough and strong enough
to carry a knight in armor. The smaller horses were bred for the race
or the chase, others for the saddle on account of their easy, gliding
motion, and the comfort of the rider, while others, again, were stout
of back and limb and able to carry burdens. In regard to the speed
of the horses bred for that purpose, Mr. Gervase Markham, the second
Englishman who undertook to write a book on the horse, has given us some
very interesting and valuable information. He brought out his work in
the latter part of the sixteenth century, and it passed through several
“enlarged and improved” editions. In the edition of 1606 he says:
“For swiftness what nation has brought forth the horse which
excelled the English? When the best Barbaries that ever were
in their prime, I saw them overcome by a black Hobbie, of
Salisbury, and yet that black Hobbie was overcome by a horse
called Valentine, which Valentine neither in hunting nor
running was ever equalled, yet was a plain English horse, both
by syre and dam.”
From this we must conclude that some horses from the Barbary States had
been brought over previous to 1606, which doubtless antedated the arrival
of King James’ Arabian. This is the horse known as the Markham Arabian,
and is in the above list of foundation stallions. In speaking of the
Arabian horses as a breed, the Duke of Newcastle remarks as follows upon
this particular representative of that breed:
“I never saw but one of these horses, which Mr. John Markham, a
merchant, brought over and said he was a right Arabian. He was
a bay, but a little horse, and no rarity for shape, for I have
seen many English horses far finer. Mr. Markham sold him to
King James for five hundred pounds, and being trained up for a
course (race), when he came to run every horse beat him.”
The duke then goes on to speak of the staying qualities of the Arabians:
“They talk they will ride fourscore miles in a day and never
draw the bridle. When I was young I could have bought a nag for
ten pounds that would have done as much _very easily_.”
These remarks are repeated here because they are specially pertinent in
this connection.
It will be conceded by every one who has any knowledge of the horse
history of this period that the Duke of Newcastle was the best-informed
man of his generation on all subjects connected with the history and
breeding of the horse. His preference for blood was in the following
order: The Barb, the Turk, the Spaniard, the Neapolitan, and the
handsomest of the English stock. It will be observed that in this
classification the Arabian has no place.
From these illustrations, to which other similar ones might be added,
it seems to be evident that the native English stock did not lack speed
so much as they lacked quality, finish, and beauty. Perhaps size should
be included in this enumeration. They had been bred and trained to run
for centuries, and they were as stout and fleet as the exotics, but they
lacked the qualifications of beauty and style. The foreigners possessed
what the natives lacked, and more than all they furnished both the
climatic and the blood outcross that were needed to re-invigorate the
native character. It was the custom of the people in the seventeenth
century to let their horses of both sexes roam at will through forests
and glades, and in this way the average size had been reduced and the
law of Henry VIII. (prohibiting the running at large of stallions under
a certain size) had become a nullity. At the time of the restoration of
Charles II. (1660) the average size of the traveling stock of England was
very small—perhaps not over thirteen hands high—and then commenced the
serious work of increasing the size and improving the speed of the light
horse stock, under the direction and influence of the Duke of Newcastle.
The introduction of the new blood would give vigor to the stock, but as
that blood was the blood of Turks and Barbs, probably but little if any
larger than the native stock, the mystery still remains unsolved. In
about one hundred years from that time the average size of the race horse
had been brought up from less than fourteen to about fifteen hands. This
increase of size cannot be accounted for on any other grounds than the
introduction of the blood of some larger breed. We cannot conceive of
this being the blood of the old Flanders stock that had been brought over
centuries before; hence I am strongly of the opinion that the duke knew
just what he was doing when he brought in a lot of stallions and mares
(the latter called the “Royal Mares”) without telling anybody what they
were or where they came from. This view is strengthened by the fact that
none of the descendants of these mares, for several generations, ever
made a mark upon the turf. If we reject this theory of the “Royal Mares,”
we are then forced to the conclusion that the increase of size came
chiefly from the large cold-blooded mares of the native stock. The fleet
running families of the natives were small, and the imported Turks and
Barbs were but little if any larger; hence, if we accept the evidence of
our own senses and study the great variations in height, we cannot reject
the conclusion that these variations had their origin in the size of the
original elements entering into the formation of the breed.
What was the extent of the influence of the speed of the old English
race horse upon the new race horse that sprang up in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries? This is a question that has not been very much
discussed, but every intelligent and thinking man has given it more or
less thought. Britain was not rapid in the progress of civilization and
refinement, but through all the centuries of her history she had her
race horses and she ran them. There can be no doubt that many of these
native horses could outrun and outlast the best of the exotics that were
brought in. None of those exotics, so far as we know, could run and win.
Their value, then, was measured, not by what they could do themselves,
but by what their progeny could do; and that progeny, at the foundation,
carried half the blood of the old tribes. There were no racing calendars
in the seventeenth century and none till the second decade of the
eighteenth, and during all that time the blood of every man’s horse
would, naturally, be fashionable blood. When the racing calendars were
established they were a partial check upon untruthful representations,
but this check only extended to the sire of the animal, and was then not
always trustworthy. This left the whole maternal side open to all kinds
of misrepresentation, and as the Anglo-Saxon race is fond of liberty,
every man exercised the liberty of making his pedigrees to suit himself.
Thus, through advertisements, sale papers, etc., great multitudes of
fictitious pedigrees, all shaped on fashionable lines, gained currency
and were propagated from owner to owner, from generation to generation.
On this point I speak from the personal knowledge of a long lifetime
in connection with such affairs in our own country, and I take it for
granted that our English ancestors were no better and no worse than we
are ourselves. This was the condition of things in England for about
one hundred and fifty years, and when Mr. Weatherby was at work on the
Stud Book he was overflowed with a flood of those bald-headed fictions,
concocted by generations long past, and nobody could disprove them. In
this way a large portion of the accumulated rubbish of past generations
found its way into the English Stud Book and there it stands to-day,
serving only to misguide the seeker after truth.
The earliest records of English racing commence with the year 1709, and
at Newmarket 1716. There have been several racing calendars published at
different times, but probably the best and most convenient for office use
is the Racing Register published by Bailey Bros., commencing with the
first and now filling several large volumes. In the early days very few
of the winners even had any pedigree, but after the lapse of about fifty
years we find it the rule to insert the sire of all winners, although
there were still some exceptions. Under this usage it became possible in
the course of time to establish the leading facts on the paternal side,
and thus the work of the stud-book compiler was greatly facilitated.
Those racing calendars, although intended merely to serve the convenience
of men who bet their money, caring nothing for blood, served the more
permanent and valuable purpose of fixing the paternal lines in the
genealogy of the English race horse.
In 1786 Mr. William Pick, of York, England, published “A Careful
Collection of all the Pedigrees it was then Possible to Obtain,” thus
antedating Mr. Weatherby’s “Introduction” by five years. In 1785 Mr. Pick
had commenced the publication of a racing calendar called “The Sportsman
and Breeder’s Vade Mecum,” which was continued a good many years. These
little annual volumes were well received, and they were the forerunners
of Pick’s Turf Register, the first volume of which was brought out in
1703. This was the same year that the first volume of Weatherby’s Stud
Book appeared, and there was a sharp rivalry between the two authors,
not merely as two men, but as representing two divisions of the country.
Mr. Pick was a Yorkshire man and Mr. Weatherby was a Londoner. Yorkshire
claimed to be the “race-horse region” of England, and the Southrons were
ready to fight rather than concede that claim. This rivalry survived two
or three generations of racing men, and it is a question whether it
has yet subsided. In the north Pick was the authority and in the south,
Weatherby.
These two men worked on different plans, and each had its advantages.
Pick limited his labors to the great animals of the past, and took them
up in chronological order, giving a brief sketch of the history and
performances of each. This plan required space, and when he had completed
his first volume of five hundred and twenty-eight pages he had only
reached the close of 1763. The second volume, bringing the work down to
the close of 1772, made its appearance in 1805. Mr. Pick did not live
to continue the work, and it fell into the hands of Mr. R. Johnson, who
brought out the third volume in 1822, which continued the chronological
order to the close of 1782. After the lapse of forty-five years, namely
1867, the fourth volume appeared under Mr. Johnson’s name, bringing
the work to the close of 1792, and I am not aware that the work has
been continued. These four volumes contained much that cannot be found
elsewhere, and are very valuable.
When we come to study these assemblages of impossible things put together
and called pedigrees, we begin to realize the absolute rottenness of the
alleged pedigrees of that whole early period. Take, for instance, the
case of the horse called the Bald Galloway. He bore this name because
he had a bald face, and was of the Galloway breed. This Galloway breed
took its name from the old Province of Galloway, in the southwestern part
of Scotland. They were small, active horses and were famous for many
generations as a breed of pacers. It has been said that the last pacers
in Great Britain were found in Galloway. This horse, Bald Galloway, was
foaled some time about 1708 and was famous as a fast race horse till he
trained off at five years old. I think there is no doubt about his being
a genuine Galloway, and if so how could he have a pedigree all of foreign
blood and ending in a “Royal Mare?” This Galloway horse was the sire of
the famous Roxana, that produced Lath and his full brother Cade, that
made the early reputation of the great Godolphin Arabian. I will ask my
readers to refer to the Curwen Bay Barb, No. 11, near the commencement of
this chapter. This was one of the very best of all the Barbs imported,
and his origin and history are given with unusual fullness, as well as
an enumeration of the best of his get. In examining this enumeration it
will be seen that a good number of his best foals were out of Galloway
mares and are called “Galloways.” Brocklesby Betty was one of the great
mares of her day, and the Stud Book says that “as a runner, she was
thought to be the superior of any horse or mare of her time.” She was
foaled 1711, was got by Curwen Bay Barb and out of Mr. Leedes’ Hobby
Mare. She was a brood mare before she was trained, and her performances
were soon after the establishment of the Racing Calendars, which show
her great superiority. The “Hobbies” were a breed of Irish pacing horses
that had been noted for more than a hundred years, on both sides of the
Irish channel, as saddle horses, hunters, and runners. The theory that
these “Irish Hobbies” were descended from the horses on board one of the
ships of the Spanish Armada, that was wrecked on the Irish coast, is
purely fanciful, for they were known as a breed long before the Spanish
Armada was projected. The Hobbies were larger and better formed, as a
rule, than the Galloways, and more highly esteemed. These illustrations
of the influence and power of indigenous blood in the formation of the
breed, known throughout the world as the English race horse might be
extended indefinitely, but let these suffice. With the “Galloways” and
the “Hobbies,” well known to our ancestors two hundred years ago as
established breeds or tribes of horses, we cannot avoid the conclusion
that they were very prodigal of fancy and very economical of truth when
they attempted to clothe Bald Galloway, Leedes’ Hobby, etc., in foreign
pedigrees to make them fashionable. Aside from the matters of evidence
here introduced going to show the composite material entering into the
constitution, structure and instincts of the race horse as he is today,
there is another that plays a very prominent part in the combination.
When we see a race horse fourteen hands high, and another of equally pure
blood standing beside him seventeen hands high, we naturally wonder, and
ask, Why this difference in size? The Turk, the Barb, the Hobby, the
Galloway, and indeed all the old English racing stock, were very small,
scarcely averaging fourteen hands. After we have made every allowance for
a salubrious climate and a generous and unstinted dietary we must concede
a gradual increase of growth, but these things fail to account for a
difference of twelve inches in the height of two horses bred in the same
lines for untold generations. The conclusion seems to be inevitable that
there were big horses as well as little ones in the original combination
of ancestors. From these diverse sources of his inheritance, it becomes
plain to the mind of every one that the English race horse is thoroughly
composite in the blood he inherits, and it is beyond the powers of
analysis to determine whether one element did more than another in making
him the fastest running horse in the world.
While it might be forcibly, if not conclusively, argued that the native
English horse had in him all the elements necessary to the development of
a breed of race horses as great as the breed of our own day, there is one
fact ever present to the senses which goes to show that the influence of
exotic blood was very wide and very powerful in controlling the action of
the race horse. The popular and prevailing pacing action of the Hobbies,
the Galloways, and other hunting, racing and saddle tribes was completely
wiped out more than a hundred years ago. Any attempt to account for this
revolution in the gait of the English horse as a fancy of fashion, or on
the introduction of wheeled vehicles, fails to satisfy the understanding.
In the first half of the seventeenth century pacers were popular,
common, and abounded everywhere. In the second half of the eighteenth
century not one could be found in all Britain, “from Land’s End to John
O’Groat’s House.” Of all the facts that are known and established in the
history of the English horse, the wiping out of the pacer is the most
striking and significant. This exterminating process was not limited
to the families that were intended for hunting or racing purposes, but
extended to all types and breeds of English horses. The little English
pacers that had been the favorites of kings and princes and nobles for
so many centuries were submerged in the streams of Saracenic blood
that flowed in upon them, and their only legitimate descendants left
upon the face of the earth found homes in the American colonies. Their
blood is one of the principal elements in the foundation of the English
race horse, but the “lateral action” in his progeny was esteemed a
bar-sinister on the escutcheon of the stallion, and it was sought to
be covered up with something more fashionable in name. The old saddle
horses of England were not all pacers, although that habit of action was
very general among them, and in some families it was more uniform and
confirmed than in others, and my authority for this conclusion will be
found in the detailed account of the horses brought from England to the
American colonies early in the seventeenth century. It is evident that
from the day the blood of the Saracenic horse was brought in contact
with that of the indigenous saddle horse, they were antagonistic, if
in nothing more, certainly in the habit of action. The one never moved
in the lateral action and the other very generally adopted that form of
progression because it was his inheritance. What might have been the
result if left to the laws of “natural selection,” it would be impossible
to decide; but with the dictates of profit to the master, the mandates of
fashion, and above all the accepted teachings of the Duke of Newcastle,
the little pacer had no “friends at court,” and all he could do was to
get out of the way, with his lateral action. In our own country and
under the observation of everybody the pacer shows great tenacity to his
long-inherited habit of action, and although buried in non-pacing blood,
as supposed, for two or three generations, the pace is liable to appear
again, at any time. So it was, doubtless in English experiences, but as
the revolution was not retarded by the development of pacing speed, in
one hundred years from the restoration, in 1660, there was no longer a
pacer on British soil.
When the first Mr. Weatherby assumed the task of making and keeping a
registry of English race horses, he seems to have had only a very faint
conception of the magnitude of the undertaking. The first volume of his
“General Stud Book” was published in 1803, and when it appeared it was
found to contain so many things that were not true that the necessary
work of revision and excision reduced its contents fearfully. In these
eliminations he started in with a free hand, as is shown by comparison
with later editions, but soon found that his book was disappearing very
rapidly, and not much of it would be left, if he did not stay his hand.
At this point he seems to have adopted some new rule, unfortunately,
either of evidence or of date, probably the latter, for his work
discloses the fact that he declined all responsibility for pedigrees
as they came to him, of an earlier period than about 1780. Beyond that
date nearly all the crude and impossible things of fiction were allowed
to remain and are thus propagated as true, down to our own day. There
was one rule, however, adopted very early in the management of this
compilation that saved it from degeneracy, and that was the difficulty
of getting into it. In all its history, from the beginning, it has been
a kind of “close corporation,” and the animals in the volume of the last
year are almost uniformly descended from the animals to be found in the
first volume. The application of this rule, no doubt, worked an injustice
in very many cases, but it made the English race horse a BREED,
pre-eminent above all other horses for his unequaled speed as a running
horse. This general rule restricting admissions to the descendants of
such as had places in preceding volumes seems to have been followed and
maintained with a good share of rigidity, by the different generations
of the Weatherby family, in whose hands the compilation still remains.
Whatever may have been the ratio of fables and forgeries in the first
volume, they were there compacted and neither the Weatherbys nor the
breeders have been much annoyed with them since. The plan of the Stud
Book itself is very unsatisfactory to the careful student, for the reason
that it admits of no details of breeder, owner, etc., that are of vital
importance in tracing and identifying an unknown or disputed pedigree.
While the plan is very desirable and effective in placing the produce of
mares underneath the dams, it is very defective in relation to breeders,
and subsequent owners. Unless the identity of the animal can be traced
and established by the records, the pedigree is always doubtful. But
notwithstanding the unsatisfactory plan of its construction, it has been
honestly compiled, and we may safely accept its contents, back as far as
the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Mr. Weatherby began his
work; but when we reach the period of the eighteenth century, facts,
fables and frauds are so inextricably mixed that whatever we accept must
be _cum grano salis_. Beyond that period Mr. Weatherby furnishes nothing
but the wildest fancies and traditions shaped up by those contributing
them with a view to lengthen a pedigree and a price accordingly. All that
we can ever know of the horses of that period we must gather from the
little snatches dropped by contemporaneous historians.
In establishing his “General Stud Book,” Mr. Weatherby’s work may be
compared to the building of an embankment around a great field which
contained all the race horses of the realm. They were of all colors, all
markings and all sizes, except the monster cart horse and the diminutive
Shetland. They had all raced or possessed blood that had raced, and they
all had pedigrees of various lengths and various degrees of reliability.
They all walked and trotted and galloped, and there was not a pacer among
them, for the last pacer had disappeared from England probably fifty
years before this. The antagonism of the Saracenic horse had triumphed,
and that antagonism was bred in the blood and bone of every animal in
the field. They were placed there to be inter-bred and to produce race
horses. Every one of the thousand owners was anxious to produce a great
winner, and he was left to the exercise of his own fancy and judgment as
to what cross would be most likely to prove successful, and to vindicate
his superior intelligence. With, all experimenting outside of the breed
practically barred, the instincts of the breed ripened and intensified
until its representatives are able to beat the fleetest in the world
at the gallop, but they could neither walk fast nor trot fast. It is
doubtful whether any person in the world has ever seen a true-bred race
horse that could trot a mile in four minutes. At this gait they show no
aptness nor speed whatever. By breeding to fit the modern methods of
racing, the speed of the race horse has been greatly increased, for short
distances, but his stamina and endurance no longer command admiration as
in former generations.
In the latter half of the last century there were a good many excellent
trotters in England, but the further we get away from the blood of the
old English pacer, the fewer the trotters we find, until at last there
are none at all. It seems to be true of all countries that where there
are no pacers there are no trotters. It was not the purpose nor wish of
the English people to banish the trotter, but when the pacer was banished
the trotter soon followed him.
CHAPTER VII.
THE AMERICAN RACE HORSE.
Antiquity of American racing—First race course at Hempstead
Plain, 1665— Racing in Virginia, 1677—Conditions of early
races—Early so-called Arabian importations—The marvelous
tradition of Lindsay’s “Arabian”— English race horses first
imported about 1750—The old colonial stock as a basis—First
American turf literature—Skinner’s _American Turf Register and
Sporting Magazine_, 1829—Cadwallader R. Colden’s _Sporting
Magazine_ short-lived but valuable—The original _Spirit of the
Times_—_Porter’s Spirit of the Times_—_Wilkes’ Spirit of the
Times_, 1859—Edgar’s Stud Book —Wallace’s Stud Book—Bruce’s
Stud Book—Their history, methods, and value—Summing up results,
showing that success has followed breeding to individuals and
families that could run and not to individuals and families
that could not run, whatever their blood.
Horses were kept for running, and horse racing was a common amusement
in some of the American Colonies for about a hundred years before the
first English race horses were imported. This embraces a century of horse
history that, hitherto, has been practically unexplored and unknown.
For the details of what I have been able to glean of this neglected
and unknown century my readers are referred to the chapters on the
different colonies. The first racing in this country of which we have any
historical knowledge was organized by Governor Nicolls. In 1664 the Dutch
surrendered the province of New Netherlands to the English, and the next
autumn, 1665, the new race course at Hempstead Plains was inaugurated by
the new governor of the colony. This course was named Newmarket, after
the famous English course, and Governor Nicolls’ successors continued to
offer purses on this course for many years, and after a time there were
two regular meetings held there, spring and autumn. Owing to the distance
of this course from the city, other courses, near at hand, were soon
constructed and racing of all kinds and at all gaits held high carnival.
The principal prizes were called “Subscription Purses,” the distance
almost invariably two miles, and the weight carried ten stone. The horses
that ran were known as “Dutch horses,” and were descended from the
original stock brought from Utrecht, in Holland. They were larger than
the English horses, and brought better prices, although the latter were
esteemed more highly for their saddle gaits. I think the Dutch horses,
originally, had no natural pacers among them, but for the pleasures and
uses of the saddle they were inter-bred with the English horses and the
mixed blood soon produced many pacers. It is probable also that this
mixture increased the speed of the whole tribe. Thus racing continued
with but few interruptions and without any known changes in the rules
or conditions governing performances, except that after fifty years or
more the weight to be carried was reduced from ten stone to eight stone.
In the year 1751, which was eighty-six years after Governor Nicolls had
established the Newmarket course on Long Island, we find the following
significant condition inserted in the terms of entrance to the races, for
the first time: “Free to any horse, mare, or gelding bred in America.”
The simple meaning of this new condition was to “head off” the scheme
of some “sharp” fellows who were, probably, then on the ocean with two
or three English race horses, with which they expected to “gobble up”
whatever stakes or purses came within their reach.
The first record we have of racing in Virginia is to be found in the
court records of Henrico County, in the year 1677—twelve years after the
establishment of racing in New York. For fuller particulars of this,
the reader is referred to the chapter on that colony. The Virginians
were a horse-racing people from the start, and it is impossible to
tell how long before racing first commenced, but probably just as
soon as any two neighbors met, each owning a horse, a few hundred
pounds of tobacco were put up the next day, to make it interesting, in
determining which was the faster. This racing feeling was not confined
to neighbors nor to neighborhoods, but it pervaded the whole colony, and
the people of every county had their annual and semi-annual meetings,
which everybody attended. Their methods of handicapping will strike the
present generation as somewhat peculiar. In their advertisements of the
meetings, such language as the following was very common: “Sized horses
to carry one hundred and forty pounds and Galloways to be allowed weight
for inches.” From this we learn that the tribe of little Scotch pacers
were still to the fore on this side of the water and that they were
just as fleet as the larger horses, provided the weight was graduated
to their inches. There was one feature in these race meetings that will
be a surprise to many of my readers, as it was to myself, and that is
the fact that at most of these meetings there was one four-mile race.
Smaller prizes were run for by horses classed as to size, and it may be
noted that there was one class “not exceeding thirteen hands.” At these
meetings the distance never seems to have been less than one mile, while
on the southern border of the colony and in North Carolina, quarter
racing was very popular and very common from the earliest dates, and it
was kept up through the greater part of the eighteenth century. For a
fuller account of the racing of those early days the reader is referred
to the chapter on Virginia.
In this old English, Irish and Scottish blood, full of the pacing
element, which we may now call “native” blood, we have the real
foundation upon which the English race horse was bred and from which has
come the approximate if not the complete equal of the highest type of the
English horse, in both speed and stamina. The English and the American
race horse came from the same source and possess the same blood, with
this trifling distinction—the native mares in England were bred to horses
of exotic, Saracenic origin, while the native mares of America were bred
to the descendants of that native-exotic combination. Hence, with the
original maternal ancestry of the same blood, the combined and improved
English descendant of that blood became the paternal ancestor of the
American race horse. We must not forget that this “paternal ancestor”
had been the result of crossing and recrossing, selecting, breeding and
developing for nearly a hundred years, and that he was, therefore, a
far better horse and far more prepotent as a sire than the produce of
the first cross made under the direction of the Duke of Newcastle. We
must not ignore the fact that while there were many stallions brought
over in the early days there were also a few mares, but they were so few
in number that their influence was hardly appreciable in the new breed
to be established. Saracenic blood was touched very sparingly in the
colonial days, as even the names of not more than three or four have
been preserved in history. The only one of that period fully identified
was named Bashaw and was kept on Long Island about the year 1768. Like
all the others, he was called an Arabian, but according to the showing
of his advertisement he was bred by the Emperor of Morocco, and was not
an Arabian. Of the later period and coming down to about 1860 there are
twenty-five or thirty that have been called “Arabians.” Near the head
of the list stands one called “Arab Barb” or “Black Arabian Barb.” He
was claimed to be an imported Barb from Algiers, and was seventeen hands
high, “and coarse in proportion.” Many other so-called “importers” were
equally absurd and dishonest in their claims, but there horses all passed
as genuine “Arabians.” Out of the whole number called “Arabians” not more
than five or six seem to have had a shadow of right to the name, and
these exceptions were practically restricted to the animals imported by
Mr. A. Keene Richards, of Kentucky. That each and all of these exceptions
were irredeemable failures is a fact well known to all intelligent
horsemen. This motley crew of “Arabian” importations came from all the
countries bordering on the Mediterranean, except Arabia, were all called
“Arabians,” and they were all flat disappointments both as race horses
and as producers of race horses.
Out of this list of thirty-five or forty so-called Arabian horses, there
is one that requires special mention, not only because a correction
may be made in his history, but because I have frequently spoken of
him as the only Arabian that had left any mark upon the horse stock of
the country. Lindsay’s Arabian, as he was called, was a grey horse and
represented to be over fifteen hands high. The story is that he was a
Barb and had been presented to the commander of a British man-of-war,
when a colt, by the ruler of one of the Barbary States, as an expression
of gratitude to the captain for having saved the life of his son. The
captain sailed away for a South American port, and while lying there he
took his present ashore to let him have a little exercise. The colt was
given the free range of a lumber-yard, as the story goes, and in his
playfulness a pile of lumber fell upon him and broke three of his legs.
The British officer was greatly grieved at his loss and proposed to put
the colt out of misery by knocking him on the head. There happened to be
an American trading vessel in port and the skipper “allowed if he had
that critter on his vessel he could save him.” The officer at once gave
him to the skipper and told him his history. Yankee ingenuity and thrift
soon got him aboard the trader and he was swung up and his legs properly
bandaged. The surgical treatment was good, the bones knit, and in due
time the vessel arrived at New London, and the colt was taken to the
vicinity of Hartford. Just where this story originated it is not possible
now to say, nor do I know that it ever had currency in Connecticut, but
it was certainly rehearsed and probably believed in Maryland. He was
owned by Colonel Wyllis of Hartford, and was advertised in 1770 under the
single name of Ranger, and described as “a fine English stallion of the
Barbary breed, bred in England.” From this it would appear that nothing
was then known of his romantic history. As a part of his Maryland history
it was said that General Washington’s attention had been attracted to
a body of Connecticut cavalry by the excellence of their horses, and
at his instance Captain Lindsay bought Ranger, because he was the sire
of many of those horses, and took him to Maryland, where he was ever
afterward known as “Lindsay’s Arabian.” The story of the indorsement
of Washington made an excellent stallion card, and it is not necessary
that we should inquire into it too closely, for the dates might raise
a question. The horse passed from Colonel Wyllis to James Howard, of
Windham, and was advertised by him as “The Imported Arabian Horse called
The Ranger to stand at his stable the season of 1778.” Hence we must
conclude that he was not taken to the South before the season of 1779,
or possibly later. Then, as now, to catch the popular fancy, North and
South, the horse is no longer an “English stallion of the Barbary breed”
but an “Imported Arabian Horse.” His cross was well esteemed in his
day, and it has held its place in the estimation of all the experienced
horsemen as a good cross in an old pedigree. We now see that he was bred
in England, that he was got by a Barb horse or the son of a Barb horse,
and that it is not probable there was a single drop of Arabian blood
in his veins. This little sketch will serve to illustrate the methods,
general and particular, that were invariably used to place a fictitious
value upon the so-called imported “Arabians.” In no other department of
human knowledge has there been such a universal and persistent habit of
misrepresenting the truth of history as in matters relating to the horse.
It seems to have been, and still is, a kind of psychical contagion that
has been generating dishonesty and a habit of lying in the minds of the
great body of horsemen for the past two hundred and fifty years. If a
horse is brought from Turkey, or Syria, or Egypt, or Spain, or Morocco,
or any of the Barbary States, he is at once called an “Arabian.” This
is worse than a misnomer, for it is an essential untruth, and its
universal use does not redeem it from its essence of deception and fraud.
It must be conceded, however, that this deception may have sprung from
bad teaching and ignorance rather than from a depraved moral sense, for
many people, as well as the poets and the novelists, may have concluded
that as the nations named above got their religion from Arabia, so
they got their horse stock from the same country, and thus the horses
brought from Turkey, or Syria, or Egypt, or Spain, or Morocco, or any
of the Barbary States, are descendants of the Arabian horse and thus
entitled to the name “Arabian.” This seems to be the only theory upon
which this universal misrepresentation can be palliated. Let us repeat a
sentence or two here, to show what history reveals on this point. Strabo
says there were no horses in Arabia at the beginning of the Christian
era. Philostorgius says that in the year 356, two hundred “well-bred”
Cappadocian horses were sent as a present to the prince of Yemen, by
the Emperor Constantius. These were the first horses in Arabia. In the
days of Mohammed horses were exceedingly scarce in Arabia, and they have
remained so to the present time. The horse is an expensive exotic in
Arabia, as he is never used for any domestic purpose, nor for any other
purpose except robbery or display. For all domestic and commercial uses
the camel is far better. All the countries named above were abundantly
supplied with horses, at least eight hundred or a thousand years before
there were any horses in Arabia. The Moslems got their religion from
Arabia, but not their horses. This topic is more fully discussed in the
chapter on the Arabian horse.
The importation of English race horses to this side of the water
commenced about the year 1750, and that being the middle of the last
century it is easy to remember the date when the line was drawn between
the old and the new elements appearing on the race course. The following
six animals were brought over within a year or two of that date—Monkey,
Traveller, Dabster, Childers, Badger, and Janus. A few others might be
named, but some at least are mythical. Of those here named, Traveller
was the great horse. Janus became the progenitor of a tribe of very fast
quarter horses, and although he did not found that tribe, which had been
in existence for a hundred years on the border line between Virginia and
North Carolina, he doubtless improved it. Monkey was twenty-two years old
when he came and did not live long. The whole number imported into all
the colonies before the war of the Revolution counts up to about fifty,
and some of these are practically unknown, and a few of them were wholly
fictitious. Maryland, I think, was first in the field of importations,
and then followed Virginia, New York, and North Carolina. Possibly the
very earliest importations were made in South Carolina, but there is
not much evidence that those importations were utilized to any extent
for racing purposes, and hence we know but little of the doings of that
colony till a later date. There were not more than about twenty mares of
English race-horse blood imported, in the quarter of a century preceding
the Revolution, into all the colonies. As many of these animals of both
sexes were stolen or destroyed during the war, we can approximate with
some degree of certainty the great reduction in this producing force by
the time the war ended and importations again commenced.
Now, we have before us the old colonial running stock that had been
tested in many a battle and found able to cover the distance of two to
four miles, and we have also the new running stock that had never been
asked to go any further, but we have no actual, authentic and reliable
knowledge of the comparative speed of the two classes. There were no stop
watches nor records of time kept in those days. This much only we know,
that prizes were offered for “half-breds” for a few years, but when it
was found that some of the half-breds could run just as fast and as far
as some of the whole-breds, this class of prizes was withdrawn. Then
commenced the manufacture of fraudulent pedigrees, for, it was argued,
“How could an American horse beat an English horse unless he had English
blood and plenty of it?” Hence, when a horse won that fact was taken as
proof that he was full bred, and no time was lost in investing him with
a first-class, pure-bred pedigree. This was a little onerous on the few
imported mares that were known and named, as in the case of imported Mary
Gray, for she had to _produce_ eleven filly foals by imported Jolly Roger
in order to accommodate her numerous progeny, as alleged, and how many
more claims were made of the same pedigree it would be very difficult
to estimate. When it began to appear a little awkward to require Mary
Gray to have, on paper, more than eleven filly foals by Jolly Roger, it
was soon, discovered that it was less perplexing and at the same time
less liable to be “cornered” by saying “dam an imported English mare.”
No doubt there was a great deal of sharp practice, to say nothing of
cheating and lying, about horse matters in Colonial times, but those
little venialities were only the blossoms indicating the mature fruits
of deceptions and frauds that were to follow when pedigrees would be
considered an element of value in the running horse, and when every man
would have the power, in fact, to make and print his pedigrees to suit
himself. This brings us to a very brief consideration of what has been
done in the direction of correcting the frauds of the past and preventing
them in the future.
The period of fable and of falsehood in the genealogy of the American
race horse seems to have commenced not long after the first importations
of English race horses. In the first generations from the imported
English horse and the native mare, it was rather difficult for a man
to fix up a pedigree for his half-bred colt that would show him to
be full bred, but after forty, fifty, or sixty years had elapsed the
events became misty, and then every man exercised the right to make
his own pedigrees to suit his own fancy. This seems to have been the
condition of things for many years, and while there were a few honest
men who would stick to the truth, the great majority either made their
pedigrees to suit themselves or employed some “expert” to make them for
them. The confusion which ensued was most perplexing, and the slipshod
manner in which editors and writers on the horse did their work was most
discouraging. Whatever was found in print on a crossroads blacksmith shop
door was taken as authentic, because it was in print.
In 1829 Mr. John S. Skinner, of Baltimore, Maryland, commenced the
publication of a monthly magazine, entitled “_The American Turf Register
and Sporting Magazine_,” and as it really “filled a long-felt want,” it
received a very encouraging support. As its name indicated its field,
it at once became the authority on sporting events and the receptacle
of a great amount of valuable correspondence on the horses of the day,
as well as the earlier race horses. Mr. Skinner was industrious in
collecting material for his magazine, but unfortunately he published
whatever was sent to him relating to the horse, and just as it was sent.
If a communication was well written, no difference how many errors of
fact it might contain, it never seemed to occur to Mr. Skinner to use
his blue pencil. Pedigrees were sent in, amounting to many thousands,
during his ownership, with fictitious and untruthful remote extensions,
and published without any possibility of tracing the different crosses
to a known or responsible source or name. Here was the opportunity of a
lifetime to “fix up” the pedigrees of stallions to suit the public demand
and the fees sought by their owners, send them to Mr. Skinner, and have
them duly spread before the public in all their dishonest finery. The
early volumes are very rich in the accumulations of pedigrees, such as
they are, and hence very valuable. The magazine received less and less
attention from its proprietor each succeeding year and finally it was
transferred to the _Spirit of the Times_, of New York, and died after an
existence of some fifteen years.
Mr. Cadwallader R. Colden, of New York, commenced the publication of
another sporting magazine, that was of very great merit, and did much to
correct some of the errors that abounded in Mr. Skinner’s publication.
In the controversies which naturally sprang up he had greatly the
advantage of his adversary, for he knew horse history and Mr. Skinner
did not. Mr. Colden was a man of marked ability, and over the signature
of “An Old Turfman” he made himself famous as a writer. He hated a fraud
and wherever he saw one he did not hesitate to hit it. His publication
was a large and expensive one, racing was then under the periodical
interdict of public opinion, and after about two or three years, and
greatly to the loss and misfortune of the truths of horse history, the
publication was discontinued. The weekly press had no representative in
the field of “horse literature and sporting subjects” until early in
the thirties, when the _Spirit of the Times_ was founded by William T.
Porter. The conception of a weekly paper devoted to all kinds of sports,
such as hunting, fishing, racing, gaming, etc., was not only new in this
country, but it was brilliant. Mr. Porter was not only a gentleman in his
appearance and manners, but he had fine social qualities and was a writer
of ability and polish. Such a personage would naturally gather about him
friends and correspondents that were congenial, and very soon _The Spirit
of the Times_ became noted as the organ of a great body of educated men
who loved sport and enjoyed wit. It was the only publication of its kind
on the continent, and it soon obtained a very wide circulation. Mr.
Porter knew very little of horses, either theoretically or practically,
but he was a ready adapter and wrote some fine descriptions of famous
racing contests. His habits were sportive rather than industrious, hence
he left nothing behind him of value to his friends or to the world
except the mere fact that he was the founder of the first sporting paper
in this country. In course of time the paper with all its belongings
became the property of John Richards, the former pressman, and Mr. Porter
had to look for a living wherever he could find it. Mr. George Wilkes
then took him under his wing, and started a new sporting paper called
_Porter’s Spirit of the Times_. The use of this name carried with it the
support of a good many friends, but as he was not able to write anything,
practically, for the new paper, from its very commencement in September,
1856, it failed to yield any support to Mr. Porter, and not much to Mr.
Wilkes and his partners. Litigation arose and Mr. Wilkes finally withdrew
from _Porter’s Spirit of the Times_, and started _Wilkes’ Spirit of the
Times_ in September, 1859. We then had three sporting papers all claiming
to be the original and only legitimate _Spirit of the Times_. Among their
readers they were distinguished as the _Old Spirit_, _Porter’s Spirit_,
and _Wilkes’ Spirit_. The circulation of the Old Spirit was largely in
the Southern States, and the war destroyed it, in 1861. _Porter’s Spirit_
having but little money and still less brains, died about the same time.
This left Mr. Wilkes in open possession of the field, and his remarkably
trenchant articles on the conduct of the war gave _Wilkes’ Spirit of
the Times_ a very wide circulation, even among those who cared nothing
for sporting matters. At the same time he was fortunate in securing the
services of Mr. Charles J. Foster, an able writer on horse subjects, and
a very industrious and capable man in managing and discussing affairs
connected with the horse. Some years later, Mr. Wilkes dropped his
own name from the title of his paper, and not long afterward he added
twenty-five or thirty years to its age by changing the numbers so as to
cover the period of the original _Spirit of the Times_ founded by William
T. Porter. The old sporting publications, one and all, maintained the
view, so far as they ever had any view to maintain, that all that was
of any value in the American horse, for whatever purpose, had come down
to us from the Arabian through the English race horse. Their value,
therefore, consists wholly in the naked statistics which they contain.
The first attempt made in this country, in the direction of publishing
a stud book of American race horses, was the product of Patrick Nesbitt
Edgar, an eccentric and apparently not well-balanced Irishman, who was
a resident of North Carolina. This book, which purported to be a “first”
volume, was very remarkable in many respects, two or three of which I
will enumerate. The prevailing absence of dates and all means by which
the truth or falsity of a pedigree could be determined; the astounding
number of crosses given, even to the _immediate_ descendants of imported
sires; the multitude of animals never heard of before nor since, with
pedigrees extended a dozen crosses; the absence of many animals that
everybody had heard of. This book had been in print about thirty years
before I ever saw it, and the first impression it made on my mind was
that the author was “clean daft.” At the same time, through all his work
there was a “method in his madness,” going to show the care he had taken
to exclude or suppress any little fact that might lead to detection and
exposure. As an illustration of his methods I will take the following
pedigree, at random, as given by him and copied, literally, by Mr. Bruce,
following the particular form of the latter:
CENTAUR, b. h. foaled 1767, bred by ——; owned in Virginia, got
by imported Stirling (Evans’) (foaled 1762).
1st dam by imp. Aristotle (imported 1764).
2d dam by imp. Dotterel.
3d dam by imp. David (imported 1763).
4th dam by imp. Ranter (imported 1762).
5th dam by imp. Othello (imported 1755).
6th dam by imp. Childers (imported 1761).
7th dam an imported, thoroughbred mare.
Now, what do we know about this pedigree that has been indorsed and
published, just as here stated, by two stud-book makers? They do not
pretend to know by whom he was bred, nor do they know in what part of
Virginia he was owned, but they assume to know perfectly well each cross
in his pedigree and that his seventh dam was an imported, thoroughbred
mare. The dates of importations in parentheses in the foregoing have
been placed there by myself for the sake of the exhibit. The horse
Dotterel, the original of that name and by the same reputed sire, never
left England, and it is probable this Dotterel is mythical. Now, let us
analyze this pedigree by the aid of the searchlight of dates. Ranter,
imported 1762, might have had a filly to his credit in 1763. This filly
at two years old might have been bred to David and produced a filly in
1766. This filly at two years old might have been bred to Dotterel and
produced a filly in 1769. This filly at two years old might have been
bred to Aristotle and produced a filly in 1772. This filly, at two years
old, might have bred to Evans’ Stirling (or Starling), and produced the
colt Centaur in 1775—_but he was foaled in 1767_. Not once in a million
times would this succession of possibilities occur, but if they did occur
in this case the pedigree of Centaur still remains absolutely impossible,
for four generations of horses cannot be crowded into five years. This
exhibit fairly illustrates the character of Mr. Edgar’s work, and being
right on the border line between the “native” race horse and the modern
“thoroughbred” we see just how they compressed the breeding of eight
generations into the space of fifteen or sixteen years. If we were to
compare the English with the American methods of manufacturing pedigrees,
it would be hard to determine which was the more shamefully dishonest.
Mr. Edgar was fiercely dissatisfied with the indifference of horsemen to
his enterprise, and with the lack of support which they rendered him. He
went forward with his second volume and professed to have completed it,
but announced that it should never be put in type until the horsemen of
the country should assist and support him. In the event of their failing
to do so he threatened to sink his manuscript twenty feet deep in the
center of the Dismal Swamp, where no mortal would ever find it. The
second volume never appeared, and it is to be hoped he carried out his
threat.
For the second attempt at compiling a stud book of American Race Horses
I must, myself, plead guilty. Some time in the “fifties” I came into
possession of a number of volumes of the “old” _Spirit of the Times_,
Skinner’s American Turf Register, three or four volumes of the “English
Stud Book” and a large number of volumes of the _English Sporting
Magazine_. As I was then dabbling slightly around the edges of “horse
literature,” I found this little nucleus of a library very convenient,
but very unsatisfactory in answering questions that came to me, and
which an official position seemed to require that I should be able to
answer. When asked for the pedigrees of other domestic animals I could
take down the Herd Books of the different leading breeds and give precise
information, but when asked about the pedigree of a horse, unless he was
greatly distinguished as a racer, days of solid labor might be expended
on the one question and then not discover the information sought. It
was, perhaps, ten years after this time before I ever saw or heard of
the misbegotten and foolish compilation of pedigrees made by Edgar. For
some years this labor of compilation was prosecuted at odd hours, for
my own personal use and satisfaction, and without the remotest purpose
of ever publishing a stud book. As I plodded my way along, finding what
I supposed to be a fact here and another there, and often conflicting,
I found myself invariably accepting what was longest as a pedigree,
as this feature seemed to be evidence not only of completeness, but
of truthfulness at the same time. As my gleanings grew in volume my
interest in what I was doing became more absorbing and intense, and when
I had completed the search of every page and paragraph of my published
sources of information, up to the close of the year 1839, I found I had
enough matter for a large volume. About this time I came into possession
of a copy of “Edgar’s Stud Book”—and I was greatly perplexed to know
what to do with it. The copyright was dead and it contained a good many
unimportant and utterly unknown things that I had not met with in all my
gleanings. Under these circumstances and considering the fact that it
abounded in the crudest uncertainties, to call them by no harsher name,
I concluded to use his work in all cases where I did not have a pedigree
from other sources, to cut off all imaginary extensions and to insert his
name, in every case, as the source of information and responsibility. The
work then went to press and the first volume of “Wallace’s American Stud
Book” made its appearance in 1871. The time and labor expended on the
first volume made me quite familiar with the leading performers of the
several generations embraced therein, and the work on the second volume
went forward with more ease and rapidity, and in 1871 I had completed the
gleaning of all publications relating to the race horse, up to the close
of 1870.
This second volume, being about the size of the first, was completed and
put in due form for the compositor, but never was published. The reason
why it was never published may not be without interest to the student
of horse genealogy, and I will, in a few words, state that reason.
Side by side with the progress of the second volume of the runners,
I was carrying forward a careful investigation of the lineage of the
early trotters and their progenitors. As there were no trotting records
giving pedigrees, I was compelled to go back to the breeders as the only
source of reliable information. When I obtained this from intelligent
and reputable people I accepted the information and stood by it as the
truth; and when I came to compare it with the representations of pedigree
made in advertisements of some stallion scion of the family, the truth
began to dawn upon me that advertisements, whether in newspapers or on
crossroads blacksmith-shop doors, with scarcely an exception, were made
up of statements that were utterly false and fictitious. They were made
up for the single purpose of securing patronage, and generally traced
in different directions to famous and well-known horses. The fictitious
extensions of stallion advertisements have served as the basis for the
fictitious extensions of families and tribes. When I came to compare
the extensions of trotting pedigrees with running pedigrees, I could
not discover that the one was any more or less reliable than the other.
They rested on precisely the same basis of stallion pedigrees, and no
difference whether they appeared in Mr. Skinner’s _Turf Register_ or in
a big poster, there was no censorship, and they were both in type—and
whatever was in type was generally supposed to be worthy of belief. In
one respect the pedigrees of running horses are more reliable than the
early advertisements of trotting horses, particularly with those that
raced, for they were required to give the sire and dam when they were
entered in races, and a failure to comply with this rule was penalized.
The sires, therefore, are generally right, but unfortunately the rule did
not require the dam to be named and definitely specified, hence any one
of a dozen unnamed mares by a given horse could be represented in after
years as the dam of that particular horse. Here commenced the trouble
in the unnamed and untraced mares that never have been nor ever can be
identified. On a careful and sorrowful review of my work of many years I
found that I had been working on a wrong basis from the start. Instead of
discovering and arranging a great many valuable truths, as I supposed,
I had devoted years to perpetuating thousands and thousands of fictions
in these unknown, unnamed, and unidentified dams. This is the reason the
second volume of “Wallace’s American Stud Book” never was published.
The only benefit I ever derived from the work was in its educational
aspects. The work made me familiar with the early running-horse history
of this country and of England, and taught me what so many horsemen
should learn—that a truth is always better than a lie. The more carefully
and thoroughly I went into the origin, lineage and history of what we
may call the modern race horse, the more evident it became to my mind
that the great mass of the running horses of our own generation are
carrying, in their pedigrees, the frauds and fictions of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, to say nothing of the innumerable deceptions
and tricks of our own century. To accept and propagate these untruths is
simply to, in a manner, indorse them, and an attempt to eliminate them
would invoke the clamors of a continent. Hence, more than twenty years
ago, I washed my hands of all responsibility for the pedigrees of English
race horses, and turned my attention to establishing the lineage of the
American trotter, on sure foundations, and building him up into a breed.
The third attempt at compiling the pedigrees of running-bred horses was
made by Mr. Sanders D. Bruce, of New York, and as it followed Edgar and
Wallace, it was made up chiefly of what he found in these works. The
conscienceless fictions of Edgar were accepted without hesitation or
remorse, and the central aim seemed to be to make every pedigree as long
as possible, whether true or false. No fictitious stallion advertisement
was ever too absurd to serve as a basis for the pedigrees of all his
kindred. Mr. Bruce accepted everything and rejected nothing, and it is
not probable he ever investigated a pedigree in his life. His rule of
action seems to have been to please his customers, and to scrupulously
avoid all public discussions of pedigrees. This was the politic course to
pursue, for any attempt to defend the monstrosities it contained would
have wiped it out of existence very quickly. Bruce’s Stud Book seems to
have been supported by a few individuals, from the beginning, as a kind
of eleemosynary institution, and it is not likely it will ever rise above
that condition.
The substantial correctness of the generations extending back for a
period of sixty or eighty years, and in some cases even a little further,
is a very valuable contribution to our store of knowledge in this
department of industry, but, unfortunately, the generations beyond those
that may be classed as recent very largely rest upon foundations that are
fictitious and fraudulent.
These fictions and frauds are so general and common in the remote
extensions on the female side of the pedigree that when we find a
string of ten or perhaps twenty dams and not one of them named, known
or identified until we strike the twenty-first, and she described as
“thoroughbred, imported mare,” we know that this is the work of the
professional “pedigree maker,” and not more than once in a hundred times
will we be mistaken. This is alike true of both English and American
pedigrees of race horses. The modern crosses are comparatively honest,
but the remote extensions, through the maternal lines, in both countries
are chiefly the products of a venal imagination.
There are some foundation truths in the history and development of the
English and American race horse—for they are both one in blood—to which
I must briefly advert before dismissing this topic. In announcing the
conclusions which I have reached, I am fully conscious that I will come
in contact with preconceived opinions that have been very prevalent, if
not universal, for at least two centuries.
1. There were race horses in England that had been racing and breeding
for centuries before the first Saracenic horse was brought there, and
it was not an uncommon thing for the native to beat the exotic, when he
first arrived. There had been racing in America, by what we will call the
native stock—but they were all English and Dutch—for about one hundred
years before the first English race horse reached this country.
2. These horses had been selected with care and bred for centuries with
more or less intelligence, with the single purpose of increasing their
speed. During those centuries there were not so many writers on biology,
heredity, etc., as we have now, but the old aphorism, “Like begets
like”—a complete epitome of all science on this subject—was just as well
known and as universally believed a thousand years ago as it is to-day.
We may, therefore, safely conclude that at the close of the sixteenth
century there were many native English horses, descended from lines and
tribes that had been selected, raced and bred for generations, that were
fully the equals of the best of the exotics, that were brought in about
that time.
3. The native stock of England at the close of the sixteenth century, was
the stock from which the American colonies received their first supplies,
except the few brought from Utrecht, in Holland, to the Dutch Colonists
in New York. When brought across the Atlantic, especially in Virginia, no
time was lost in continuing their development as race horses, which was
carried forward for nearly one hundred years before the first English
race horse was imported for their improvement. Their regular racing was
at all distances, up to four miles.
4. On this basis of the native English blood, common to both countries,
the breed of English and American race horses was built up. The foreign
elements brought into England were chiefly from the Barbary States and
from Turkey. This exotic blood certainly had a very marked effect upon
the horse stock of Britain, but it cannot be said, with certainty, that
it increased the speed of the race horse. All the experiences of the past
hundred years with these foreign strains have gone to show that instead
of increasing the speed they have retarded it.
5. The list of the foundation stock of the English race horse as given
by Mr. Weatherby, in the first volume of the English Stud Book, and
reproduced in the preceding chapter, is worthy of very careful study,
especially by those who seem to think that the English race horse is
descended, without admixture, from the Arabian horse. The striking
feature of that list is the overwhelming preponderance of other blood
than the Arabian, even if we accept all that is called Arabian as
genuine. Mr. Darley’s horse, called an Arabian, and Lord Godolphin’s
horse, called an Arabian, count for more than all the others put
together, in the make-up of the English race horse. Mr. Darley’s horse
came from a region remote from Arabia and where a thousand good horses
are bred for one in Arabia, and should be called a Turk. Lord Godolphin’s
horse—“the great unknown”—will ever remain unknown. He seems to have been
traced to France, and, after studying his portraiture, it is probable he
was a French horse.
6. Taking this list of foundation stock and viewing it from the
standpoint of the greatest lenity and liberality that a sound and careful
judgment can accord, we find that the inheritance of Arabian blood in the
veins of the English race horse, if there was any such inheritance at
all, was strictly infinitesimal. This historical fact in the foundation
of the race horse, showing the inutility of Arabian blood, whether
genuine or spurious, has been fully confirmed in great multitudes of
trials, in both nations, during the past hundred years. In no case has it
been a benefit, but always a detriment.
7. The race horse has been bred through centuries for the single purpose
of speed. Through all his generations he has been the product of the
brains, judgment and skill of his successive masters. Parents were
selected that could go out and win the prizes from their fellows. The
next generation was not only the product of running parents, but parents
that were from running families. Thus grew up the pedigree of the
race horse under the direction of thought and judgment. Pedigrees are
practical things and full of winners, and in no sense made more valuable
by having some supposed “Arabian” cross away back ten generations, that
never ran in his life.
CHAPTER VIII.
COLONIAL HORSE HISTORY—VIRGINIA.
Hardships of the colonists—First importations of horses—Racing
prevalent in the seventeenth century—Exportation and then
importations prohibited—Organized horse racing commenced 1677
and became very general—In 1704 there were many wild horses
in Virginia and they were hunted as game—The Chincoteague
ponies accounted for—Jones on life in Virginia, 1720—Fast
early pacers, Galloways and Irish Hobbies—English race horses
imported—Moreton’s Traveler probably the first—Quarter racing
prevailed on the Carolina border—Average size and habits of
action clearly established—The native pacer thrown in the shade
by the imported runner—An Englishman’s prejudices.
The colony of Virginia, settled at Jamestown, May 13, 1607, was subjected
to a succession of dissensions, privations and disasters extending
through a number of years. The elements of which this first plantation
was composed were heterogeneous, and many of them wholly unsuited to
battle with the hardships and privations of the wilderness. A very large
proportion of the adventurers were mere idlers at home, descended from
good but impecunious families, and had never done an honest day’s work in
their lives. Too proud to labor even if they had known how, hunger and
rags soon made them the most unhappy and discontented of mortals. The
governmental affairs of the colony fell into confusion, like the people
forming it, and we have no official record of what was done for a number
of years. All that is known today of what transpired in the early years
of the colony has been gleaned from the personal correspondence of actors
in the many strifes that came so near destroying them all. These letters
are, generally, so strongly imbued with partisan feeling that there seems
to be no room left to tell us anything about the industrial growth of the
colony, either in planting or breeding. The excerpts, therefore, relating
to the early horses of Virginia which I have been able to gather from a
great many sources, will fall far short of being complete, but I think
they will serve as a basis upon which to form an intelligent estimate of
the Virginia horses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and as
to the nineteenth, the newspapers will furnish everything what is needed.
It is evident that the fleet of three vessels which took out to Virginia
the first adventurers took also some horses and mares with them; for
the governor and council, who went out the next year, in reporting the
condition of the colonists to the home company, under date of July 7,
1610, use this language:
“Our people, together with the Indians, had, the last winter,
destroyed and killed up all our hogs, inasmuch as of five or
six hundred, as it is supposed, there was not above one sow
that we can hear of left alive, not a hen or a chick in the
fort, and our horses and mares they had eaten with the first.”
From a letter written by M. Gabriel Archer, who arrived in Virginia
August 31, 1609, we gather the following facts:
“From Woolwich, the fifteenth day of May, 1609, seven sail
weighed anchor and came to Plymouth the twentieth day, where
George Somers, with two small vessels, consorted with us. There
we took into The Blessing, being the ship wherein I went, six
mares and two horses, and the fleet layed in some necessaries
belonging to the action; in which business we spent time till
the 2d of June, and then set sail to sea, but crossed by South
West winds, we put into Falmouth, and there stayed until the
8th of June, then gate out.”
Now, as The Blessing was probably about the average size of the rest of
the fleet, I think it is reasonable to conclude that each of the other
vessels took some horses also. In a report of a voyage to Virginia, dated
November 13, 1611, we find the following statement: “They have brought to
this colony one hundred cows, two hundred pigs, one hundred goats, and
seventeen horses and mares.” In 1614 the Virginians made a raid on Port
Royal, in what was then called New France, and carried off to Virginia,
among other captures, a number of horses, mares and colts. A second raid
in the same quarter seems to have resulted in carrying off wheat, horses,
clothing, working tools, etc.
Mr. Harmor, writing in 1614, in his “True Discourse on the Present State
of Virginia,” says: “The colony is already furnished with two hundred
neat cattle, infinite hogs in herds all over the woods, some mares,
horses and colts, poultry, great store, etc.”
In 1894, in the Public Records Office in London, I found that the
Virginia Company had sent out four mares, February, 1619, on The Falcon.
And further, I found a kind of summary of what the company had done in
the past toward populating and supplying the colonists with live stock.
It is stated that they had sent twelve ships, taking out one thousand
two hundred and sixty-one persons, making the total number in Virginia
at that date about two thousand four hundred. The exportations include
five hundred cattle, with some horses and goats, and an infinite number
of swine. In 1620 the company ordered twenty mares to be sent over, at
a cost, delivered, of fifteen pounds each. From the price of horses in
England at that day, I would infer that somebody was making money out of
the colonists.
In a little work published in London, 1646, entitled “A Perfect
Description of Virginia,” the author says that “There are in Virginia,
of an excellent raise (race), about two hundred horses and mares.” It
is evident that this statement is a mere estimate, and I am disposed to
think it a very wild estimate from what follows in a very few years. It
is true that horses do not propagate and increase as fast as any other
variety of domestic animals, but under the circumstances every effort
would be made to increase the stock, and from what follows, I think my
criticism will be sustained.
In the legislation of the colony we find no mention of horses, till the
year 1657, when the exportation of mares was prohibited. Eleven years
after this (1668) this restriction was removed and the exportation
of both mares and horses permitted. The very next year, 1669, the
importation of more horses was prohibited by legislative enactment. From
this it would seem that there were already too many horses in the colony,
or possibly some horse breeder had begun to realize that there were
better horses in some of the other colonies that were finding a market in
Virginia, and they thus sought “protection” for their own stock.
This prohibition could not have been aimed at the mother country,
for the prices obtained would not justify the cost and risk of a sea
voyage. We must, therefore, conclude that it was intended to shut out
the New England colonies, which were already shipping horses to all
the settlements on the seaboard, as well as to some of the West India
Islands. In this we see at what an early date commenced the interchange
of commodities among the colonies. As early as 1647 the Dutch authorities
at New Amsterdam authorized Isaac Allerton to sell twenty or twenty-five
horses to Virginia.
The court records of Henrico County, Virginia, for the year 1677 contain
three distinct trials growing out of horse races for that year. In one
case the contest was for three hundred pounds of tobacco; in another
the winner was to take both horses; in the third the amount at issue
does not appear. From the readiness at sharp practice and from the
cunning dodges to get clear of paying a bet it is very evident that the
principals and the witnesses were well up in all the tricks of racing
as it was practiced at that early day. How long before 1677 racing was
practiced in Virginia I have no means of determining, but the next year
and the next, continuing to the end of that century, the records of the
court speak for themselves. In these trials I find the names of Thomas
Jefferson, Jr., grandfather of President Jefferson, and also the name of
Benjamin Harrison, the ancestor of two presidents, although they were not
principals in any of the cases.
In Beverley’s History of Virginia, published in London, 1705, at section
ninety-four, we have the following:
“There is yet another kind of sport, which the young people
take great delight in, and that is the hunting of wild horses;
which they pursue, sometimes with dogs and sometimes without.
You must know they have many horses foaled in the woods of the
uplands, that never were in hand and are as shy as any savage
creature. These having no mark upon them belong to him that
first takes him. However, the captor commonly purchases these
horses very dear, by spoiling better in the pursuit, in which
case he has little to make himself amends, besides the pleasure
of the chase. And very often this is all he has for it, for the
wild horses are so swift that ’tis difficult to catch them; and
when they are taken ’tis odds but their grease is melted, or
else being old they are so sullen that they can’t be tamed.”
In the number of _Wallace’s Monthly_ for September, 1877, p. 684, will
be found a very interesting article from the pen of the late Dr. Elwood
Harvey, on “The Chincoteague Ponies,” that have from time immemorial
occupied, in a wild state, the islands of Chincoteague and Assoteague off
the eastern shore of Virginia and Maryland. The traditions relating to
their origin are very hazy and improbable, and the most reasonable one,
because it is within the range of possibilities, is that a Spanish ship
was wrecked off this part of the coast and the original ponies were on
board and swam ashore. It is well established that they have occupied
the islands for more than a hundred years. They are about thirteen hands
high, uniform in shape and resemble each other except in color, for all
colors prevail. Some of them pace a little, and they have rather light
manes and tails, and no superabundance of hair on the fetlocks. Now, the
horses of Virginia, at the period of which Mr. Beverley writes, and
of which I will have something further to say as we progress, were but
little if any larger than these semi-wild inhabitants of the islands;
they were of all colors and many of them paced. As it is well known that
the action of the ocean, so unaccountable to all human ken, one year
builds up a dike connecting islands with the mainland, and the next year,
perhaps, washes it out again, we can thus easily understand how a herd of
these semi-wild animals may have been caught and kept there. In this way,
it seems to me, the origin of the Chincoteague ponies may be easily and
rationally accounted for, without any shadow of violence to the clearest
reasoning. Mr. Hugh Jones, who, in many directions, seems to have been
a closer observer of the life of the colonists than any of the other
tourists whose writings we have examined, wrote a little work entitled
“The Present State of Virginia,” which was published in London, 1724,
expressing himself as follows, on page 48:
“The common planters, leading easy lives, don’t much admire
labor or any manly exercise except horse-racing, nor diversion
except cock-fighting, in which some greatly delight. This
easy way of living, and the heat of the summers, make some
very lazy, who are then said to be climate struck. The saddle
horses, although not very large, are hardy, strong, and fleet;
and will pace naturally and pleasantly at a prodigious rate.
They are such lovers of riding that almost every ordinary
person keeps a horse, and I have known some spend the morning
in ranging several miles in the woods to find and catch their
horses only to ride two or three miles to church, to the
courthouse or to a horse race, where they generally appoint to
meet on business, and are more certain of finding those they
want to speak or deal with than at their home.”
Mr. Jones here places us in close contact with the character and
habits of the people of that day, as well as with the character and
qualifications of their horses. It is not to be inferred, I think, that
all their horses were pacers, but that all their saddle horses were
pacers there can be little doubt. This is the first intimation we have
from Virginia that some of their pacers were very fast, and when Mr.
Jones says “they could pace naturally and pleasantly at a prodigious
rate,” he means that the speed was marvelous, wonderful, astonishing.
This “prodigious rate,” in a good measure, balances Dr. McSparran’s
account of the Narragansett, which he had seen go a mile “in a little
over two minutes and a good deal less than three,” and gives strength
to the statement of Mr. Lewis, that when a boy he had ridden in pacing
matches and return matches between the Rhode Islanders and the Virginians.
In the _Virginia Gazette_, under date of January 11, 1739, we find the
following advertisement, to which we invite special attention, as it
brings out some facts which, inferentially, throw a great deal of light
upon horse racing, up to that period:
“This is to give notice that there will be run for at Mr.
Joseph Seawall’s, in Gloucester County, on the first Tuesday in
April next, a Purse of Thirty Pistoles, by any horse, mare or
gelding; all sized horses to carry 140 lbs. and Galloways to
be allowed weight for inches, to pay one Pistole entrance, if
a subscriber, and two if not, and the entrance money to go to
the second horse, etc. And on the day following, on the same
course, there will be a Saddle, Bridle and Housing, of five
pounds value, to be run for by any horse, mare or gelding that
never won a prize of that value, four miles, before. Each horse
to pay five shillings entrance and that to go to the horse that
comes in second. And on the day following there is to be run
for, by horses not exceeding thirteen hands, a hunting saddle,
bridle and whip. Each horse to pay two shillings and sixpence
at entrance, to be given to the horse that comes in second.
Happy is he that can get the highest rider.”
The first point suggested by this advertisement is that there were no
distinctions made except by size, and that, at this date, 1739, there
were no English race horses then in Virginia. The second point is that
there was such a thing as “horse size” but what size this was I have
not been able to discover. The third point is that Galloways were
allowed weight for inches. They were evidently below “horse size.” But
they were expected to enter for the big purse of the meeting, and they
must, therefore, have ranked as good race horses; but what did they
mean by “Galloway?” This is the only instance in which I have met the
term in Virginian history, although it is well known in general horse
lore. “Galloway” is an old name of a territorial division of Scotland,
embracing Wigtonshire, part of Ayrshire, etc., in the southwestern
part of that country, and was at one time famous for the excellence of
its pacers, and it is probable they were to be found there after the
influx of eastern blood had driven the pacer from all other portions of
Great Britain. The Irish Hobbie, always undersized, was a famous race
horse, as well as a pacer, many generations before the period now under
consideration. The name “Galloway” is only known in history and is not
to be found on any modern map. I have learned by many experiences that
the name is very generally believed to be Irish and is confounded with
“Galway,” an Irish county. It is known that an Irish gentleman shipped
many cattle to the colony, and it is quite possible that he shipped
horses also, and if this reasoning be right, these “Galloways” may have
been Irish “Hobbies.” It will be observed, also, that the distance to be
run is not definitely stated, but it is fairly to be concluded that the
race of the second day was to be four miles, and none of them less than
one mile, and that in heats. Races of four-mile heats were very common
long before the first English race horse was imported.