of the cavalry soldier was diminished by the substitution of lighter armour, a quicker and better bred horse was thought desirable for military service. The introduction of carriages and the invention of gunpowder thus opened out a new industry in breeding; and a decided change was gradually creeping on by the time that James I. came to the throne (1603), which commences the second epoch. James was a thorough sportsman, and his taste for racing, in which he freely indulged, caused him to think but little of the speed of even the best English horses. With the laudable motive, therefore, of effecting improvement in horses, he gave the then large sum of 500 guineas for an Arab stallion which had been procured from Constantinople by a Mr Markham, since known as the “Markham Arabian.” This is the first authentic account we have of the importation of Arab blood, and the Stud-Book says he was the first of that breed ever seen in England. The people having to do with horses at that time were as conservative in their notions as most of the grooms are now, and the “Markham Arabian” was not at all approved of. The duke of Newcastle, in his treatise on horsemanship, said that he had seen the above Arabian, and described him as a small bay horse and not of very excellent shape. In this instance, however, prejudice (and it is difficult to believe that it was anything else) was right, for King James’s first venture does not appear to have been a success either as a race-horse or as a sire, and thus Arabian blood was brought into disrepute. The king, however, resolved to give Eastern blood another trial, and bought a horse known as Place’s White Turk from a Mr Place, who subsequently held some office in connexion with the stable under Cromwell. Charles I. followed in the footsteps of James, and lent such patronage to the breeding of a better kind of horse that a memorial was presented to him, asking that some measures might be taken to prevent the old stamp of horse “fit for the defence of the country” from dying out.
We now come to a very important period in the history of the British horse, for Charles II. warmly espoused the introduction of Eastern blood into England. He sent his master of the horse abroad to purchase a number of foreign horses and mares for breeding, and the mares brought over by him (as also many of their produce) were called “royal mares”; they form a conspicuous feature in the annals of breeding. The Stud-Book shows of what breed the royal mares really were: one of them, the dam of Dodsworth (who, though foaled in England, was a natural Barb), was a Barb mare; she was sold by the stud-master, after Charles II.’s death, for forty guineas, at twenty years old, when in foal by the Helmsley Turk.
James II. was a good horseman, and had circumstances been more propitious he might have left his mark in the sporting annals of the country. In his reign, according to the Stud-Book, the Stradling or Lister Turk was brought into England by the duke of Berwick from the siege of Buda.
The reign of William III. is noteworthy as the era in which, among other importations, there appeared the first of three Eastern horses to which the modern thoroughbred race-horse traces back as the founders of his lineage. This was the Byerly Turk, of whom nothing more is known than that—to use the words of the first volume of the Stud-Book—he was Captain Byerly’s charger in Ireland in King William’s wars. The second of the three horses above alluded to was the Darley Arabian, who was a genuine Arab, and was imported from Aleppo by a brother of Mr Darley of Aldby Park, Yorkshire, about the end of the reign of William III. or the beginning of that of Anne. The third horse of the famous trio, the Godolphin Arabian or Barb, brought to England about five-and-twenty years after the Darley Arabian, will be more particularly referred to further on. All the horses now on the turf or at the stud trace their ancestry in the direct male line to one or other of these three—the Byerly Turk, the Darley Arabian, and the Godolphin Arabian or Barb. In the female line their pedigrees can be traced to other sources, but for all practical purposes it suffices to regard one or other of these three animals as the ultima Thule of racing pedigree. Of course there is a large interfusion of the blood of each of the trio through the dams of horses of the present day; indeed, it is impossible to find an English race-horse which does not combine the blood of all three.
The Race-horse.—The third and last epoch of the British horse, viz. that of the thoroughbred racer, may be taken to date from the beginning of the 18th century. By thoroughbred is meant a horse or mare whose pedigree is registered in the Stud-Book kept by Messrs Weatherby, the official agents of the Jockey Club—originally termed the keepers of the match-book—as well as publishers of the Racing Calendar. The first attempt to evolve order out of the chaos which had long reigned supreme was made in 1791, for we find in the preface of the first volume of the Stud-Book, published in 1808, that “with a view to correct the then increasing evil of false and inaccurate pedigrees, the author was in the year 1791 prevailed upon to publish an Introduction to a General Stud-Book, consisting of a small collection of pedigrees which he had extracted from racing calendars and sale papers and arranged on a new plan.” It will be seen that the compiler of the volume on which so much depends had to go back fully a century, with little else to guide him but odds and ends in the way of publications and tradition. Mistakes under such circumstances are pardonable. The Stud-Book then (vol. i.), which is the oldest authority we have, contains the names and in most cases the pedigrees, obscure though they may be, of a very large number of horses and mares of note from the earliest accounts, but with two exceptions no dates prior to the 18th century are specified in it. These exceptions are the Byerly Turk, who was “Captain Byerly’s charger in Ireland in King William’s wars (1689, &c.),” and a horse called Counsellor, bred by Mr Egerton in 1694, by Lord D’Arcy’s Counsellor by Lord Lonsdale’s Counsellor by the Shaftesbury Turk out of sister to Spanker—all the dams in Counsellor’s pedigree tracing back to Eastern mares. There is not the least doubt that many of the animals named in the Stud-Book were foaled much earlier than the above dates, but we have no particulars as to time; and after all it is not of much consequence.
The Stud-Book goes on to say of the Byerly Turk that he did not cover many bred mares, but was the sire of the duke of Devonshire’s Basto, Halloway’s Jigg, and others. Jigg, or Jig, is a very important factor, as will be seen hereafter. The Stud-Book, although silent as to the date of his birth, says he was a common country stallion in Lincolnshire until Partner was six years old—and we know from the same authority that Partner was foaled in 1718; we may therefore conclude that Jigg was a later foal than Basto, who, according to Whyte’s History of the Turf, was a brown horse foaled in 1703.
The reign of Queen Anne, however (1702–1714), is that which will ever be inseparably connected with the thoroughbred race-horse on account of the fame during that period of the Darley Arabian, a bay stallion, from whom our very best horses are descended. According to the Stud-Book, “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.” The Stud-Book is silent, and other authorities differ, as to the date of the importation of this celebrated Arab, some saying he came over in the year 1700, others that he arrived somewhat later; but we know from the Stud-Book that Manica (foaled in 1707), Aleppo (1711), Almanzor (1713), and Flying Childers (1715) were got by him, as also was Bartlett’s Childers, a younger brother of Flying Childers. It is generally believed that he was imported in Anne’s reign, but the exact date is immaterial, for, assuming that he was brought over as early as 1700 from Aleppo, he could scarcely have had a foal living before 1701, the first year of the 18th century. The Darley Arabian did much to remove the prejudice against Eastern blood which had been instilled into the public mind by the duke of Newcastle’s denunciation of the Markham Arabian. Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne, was himself a large horse-owner; and it was in a great measure owing to his intervention that so many valuable stallions were imported during her reign.
