bian. And it is, perhaps, the most considerable opinion that the great and unrivalled excellence of the English horse arises from the fact that he is the offspring of a judicious cross of all the best oriental races, and not the produce of a system of close in-breeding.
It is worthy of remark, however, that although the fact is universally admitted that the whole original excellence of the English thorough blood is attributable to the blood of the desert, and although no horse is to be held as thorough-bred unless he can trace in both lines, paternal and maternal, to that blood, and although many horses of various Eastern and African breeds have been constantly imported both into England and America during the last two hundred years, no one of them has improved the breed of race-horses within the last century, or perhaps two centuries. So low at present does modern Arabian blood stand in the estimate of English turfmen, that a horse begotten by a Turkish, Arab, Barb or Persian stallion, on an English thorough-bred mare, receives in the Goodwood Cup and other races in which allowances are given, 24 lbs. from all English bred racers; and a horse begotten by such a stallion on a mare of any one of the same races, receives an enormous advantage of 48 lbs. The fact that even with this enormous advantage, no horse so bred ever wins any plate or race of consideration, shows that the distaste to the blood is not a prejudice, but is founded on valid reasons. Why this should be so is not so clear. It appears, however, to be a certain and fixed rule of breeding, that in order to improve any race the higher and purer blood must be on the sire's side, not on the dam's; and that he must be the superior animal. It is, we think, now an indisputable and undeniable fact, that the English thorough-bred horse is, in all respects, but especially in size, bone, power and beauty, a superior animal to any
