Part 2

Amongst men, do we not perceive agility and strength stand forth confessed in the fabric of their bodies? do not even the passions and pleasures of mankind greatly depend on the organs of their bodies? Amongst dogs, we shall find the foxhound prevailing over all others in speed and in bottom; but if not in speed, in bottom at least I hope it will be allowed. To what shall we impute this perfection in him? Shall we impute it to his blood, or to that elegance of form in which is found no unnecessary weight to oppress the muscles, or detract from his ability of perseverance? if to blood, from whence shall we deduce it? or from what origin is it derived? Surely no man means more, when he talks of the blood of foxhounds, than to intimate that they are descended from such, whose ancestors have been eminent for their good qualifications, and have shone conspicuous in the front of the pack for many generations.

But allowing this system of blood to exist in hounds and Horses, let us consider how inconsistently and differently we act with respect to each; with respect to hounds, if when arrived at maturity, we think them ill shaped and loosely made, we at once dispose of them without any trial, well knowing they will not answer our expectations: whereas, in Horses, let the shape be what it will, we are persuaded to train, because the jockey says thay are very HIGH-BRED. If we now compare the blood of Horses with that of dogs, shall not we find the case to be similar? will not the origin be as uncertain in Horses as in dogs? it is true, in some foreign countries they have long pedigrees of their Horses as well as we, but what proofs have they themselves of this excellence of the blood in one Horse more than another of the same country? I never heard they made any trial of their Horses in the racing way, but if they did, their decision would be as uncertain as ours with respect to the blood, because their decision must be determined by events alone, and therefore, by no means a proper foundation whereon to build a system, or establish a fact, which can be accounted for by causes.

The jockeys have an expression which, if this system be true, is the most senseless imaginable: I have heard it often said, Such a Horse has speed enough if his heart do but lie in the right place. In answer to this, let us consider a Horse as a piece of animated machinery (for it is in reality no other); let us set this piece of machinery going, and strain the works of it; if the works are are** not analogous to each other, will not the weakest give way? and when that happens, will not the whole be out of tune? But if we suppose a piece of machinery, whose works bear a true proportion and analogy to each other, these will bear a greater stress, will act with greater force, more regularity and continuance of time. If it be objected, that foreign Horses seldom race themselves, and therefore it must be in the blood, I think nothing more easily answered; for we seldom see any of these Horses sent us from abroad, especially from Arabia, but what are more or less disproportioned, crooked, and deformed in some part or other; and when we see this deformity of shape, can we any longer wonder at their inability of racing: add to this, many of them are perhaps full-aged before they arrive in this kingdom; whereas, it is generally understood, that a proper training from his youth is necessary to form a good racer.

But be this as it will, let us consider how it happens, that these awkward, cross-shaped, disproportioned Horses, seemingly contrary to the laws of nature, beget Horses of much finer shapes than themselves, as we daily see produced in this Kingdom. And here I acknowledge myself to have been long at a loss how to account for this seeming difficulty.

I have been often conversant with travelers, concerning the nature and breed of these Horses; few of whom could give any account of the matter, from having had no taste therein, or any delight in that animal: but, at length, I became acquainted with a gentleman of undoubted veracity; whose word may be relied on, whose taste and judgment in Horses inferior to no man's.

He says, that having spent a considerable part of his life at Scanderoon and Alleppo**, he frequently made excursions amongst the Arabs; excited by curiosity, as well as to gratify his pleasures. (The Arabs, here meant, are subjects of the grand seignior**, and receive a stipend from that court, to keep the wild Arabs in awe, who are a fierce banditti**, and live by plunder.) He says also, that these stipendiary Arabs are a very worthy set of people, exactly resembling another worthy set of people we have in England called Lawyers; for that they receive fees from both parties; and when they can do it with impunity, occasionally rob themselves. These Arabs encamp on the deserts together in large numbers, and with them moves all their houshold**; that these people keep numbers of greyhound, for the sake of coursing the game and procuring their subsistance: and that he has often been with parties for the sake of coursing amongst those people, and continued with them occasionally for a considerable space of time. That by them you are furnished with dogs and horses; for the use of which you give them a reward. He says they live all together; men, horses, dogs, colts, women, and children. That these colts, having no green herbage to feed upon when taken from the mare, are brought up by hand, and live as the children do; and that the older Horses have no other food, than straw and choped** barley, which these Arabs procure from the villages most adjacent to their encampments. The colts, he says, run about with their dams on all expeditions, till weaned; for that it is the custom of the Arabs to ride their mares, as thinking them the fleetest, and not their horses; from whence we may infer, that the mare colts are best fed and taken care of. That if you ask one of these banditti to sell his mare, his answer is, that on her speed depends his own head. He says also, the stone colts are so little regarded, that it is difficult to find a Horse of any tolerable size and shape amongst them.

If this then is the case, shall we be any longer at a loss to account for the deformity of an animal, who, from his infancy, is neglected, starved, and dried up, for want of juices? or shall we wonder that his offspring, produced in a land of plenty, of whom the greatest care is taken, who is defended from the extremity of heat and cold, whose food is never limited, and whose vessels are filled with the juices of the sweetest herbage, shall we wonder, I say, that his offspring, so brought up, should acquire a more perfect shape and size than his progenitor? or if the Sire is not able to race, shall we wonder that the Son, whose shape is more perfect, should excel his Sire in all performances?

But there is another reason why many of the very finest of these foreign Horses cannot race: our observations of them will shew us, that though their shoulders in general exceedingly incline backwards, yet their fore-legs stand very much under them; but in different Horses this position is more or less observable. This, (when I considered the laws of nature) appeared to me the greatest imperfection a Stallion could possibly have: but when this gentleman informed me it was the custom of the Turks always to keep each fore-leg of the Horse chained to the hinder one, of each side, when not in action, I no longer considered it as a natural, but an acquired imperfection. Shall we now wonder that such an one, though ever so well made in other respects, cannot race in spite of all his blood? But the custom of the Arabs in this respect, he says, his memory does not extend to. I well remember this to be the case of the Godolphin Arabian when I saw him, who stood bent at knees, and with his fore-legs trembling under him: such is the case of Mosco's grey Horse in some degree. In our country we frequently see Horses stand pawing their litter under them with their fore-feet; our custom to prevent it is to put hobbles on their fore-legs, and this will produce the same position in a greater or less degree, though not so conspicuous as in some of those foreign Horses, who have been habituated from their youth to this confined method of standing. His royal highness the duke of Cumberland has a very remarkable instance of this, in a Horse called Muley Ishmael, which is otherwise, the most elegant Horse I ever yet beheld. Whether this position is natural or acquired, will be best determined by his produce. Suppose now this Horse should be tried, and found no racer, shall he be condemned as a Stallion, and the fault imputed to his blood; or on the other hand, if his colts are strait** upon their legs, and found to be good racers, shall the perfection of such colt be imputed to the blood of the father, when we can account for speed in the one, and the want of it in the other, from the different attitude of each Horse? We are further acquainted, that the Horses we call Turks, are in reality Arabs; that the true Turkish Horse, is a large, heavy, majestic animal, of no speed, designed to ride on for state and grandeur; that it is the custom of the bashaws in Arabia occasionally to choose, from their provinces, such colts as they like, and send them to the grand seignior's stables which they do at their own price, and which the Arabs, who breed them, look upon as a very great hardship. These colts are again picked and culled, after having been some time in the grand seignior's stables, and the refuse disposed of at his pleasure, so that the fine Horses found in the possession of the Turks, are either some of these which are cast from the grand seignior's stables, or which the Turks buy from the Arabs whilst they are young. And he farther acquaints us with the reason why the Turks choose these Arabian Horses when young, because, if continued long in the hands of the Arabs, they are small, stunted, and deformed in shape; whereas, when brought into Turkey, a land of greater plenty than the deserts of Arabia, they acquire a greater perfection both of size and shape. Now, whether these Turks and Arabs are of the same or different extraction, may perhaps be very little to our purpose; but it is absurd to suppose that providence has bestowed a virtue on a part only of this species produced in any one country, (which species was undoubtedly designed for the use of man) and that mankind should not be able, in any age, to determine with precision this virtue, or fix any criterion, whereby to judge with any certainty.

Seeing then, this is the case, how shall we account for the various perfection and imperfection in the breed of these foreign Horses; for we perceive it not determined to those of Turkey, Barbary, or Arabia, but from each of these countries some good, some bad Stallions are sent us? What shall we do? Shall we continue to impute it to the good old phrase of blood, the particular virtue of which, no man ever yet could ascertain, in any one particular instance, since Horses were first created? or shall we say that nature has given these foreign Horses a finer texture, a finer attitude, and more power than any other Horses we know of; and that these very Horses, and their descendants always did, and always will surpass each other in speed and bottom, according to their different degrees of power, shape, elegance, and proportion? But there is also a certain length determined to some particular parts of this animal, absolutely necessary to velocity, of the particularity and propriety of which length, all jockeys appear to be intirely** ignorant, from the latitude of their expression, which is that a racer must have length somewhere.

If I might now be allowed to give my opinion of this propriety of length, I should say it consisted in the depth and declivity of the shoulders, and in the length of the quarters and thighs, and the insertion of the muscles thereof. The effect of the different position or attitude of the shoulders in all Horses, is very demonstrable: if we consider the motion of a shoulder, we shall find it limited to a certain degree by the ligamentous and the tendinous parts, which confine it to its proper sphere of acting; so that if the shoulder stand upright, the Horse will not be able to put his toes far before him, but will acquire only such a particular degree of space at each step or movement; but if the shoulders have a declivity in them, he cannot only put his toes farther before him, but a greater purchase of ground will be obtained at every stroke.

The certainty of this effect in the declivity of the shoulders will be known by every man's observation; and it is also easily demonstrated by the principles of mechanics, by which we learn, that if a weight is applied to a pulley, in order to shut a door, and that weight be allowed to fall immediately and perpendicularly from the door, it will not pull it too with that velocity as it will do if an angle be acquired, and the weight pass over a wheel removed to a very little distance from the door.

Nevertheless, there is no general rule without exception, for we now and then find a Horse to be a good racer, who has not this declivity in his shoulders, but from a length in his thighs and quarters has a sufficient share of speed. Add to this, there is another advantage obtained to the Horse besides velocity by this declivity of the shoulders, for his weight is removed farther back, and placed more in the center of his body, by which an equilibrium is acquired, and every muscle bears a more equal share of weight and action; so that the nearer the articulation of the quarters approach to the superior part of the shoulders, so much the shorter will the back be, and as much more expanded as the chest is, so much stronger will the animal be, and will also have a larger space for the organs of respiration to exert themselves.

But I would not be understood to mean, that the shortness of the back, or capacity of the chest, will constitute a racer; far from it: but that in any given and proportioned length, from the bosom of the Horse to the setting on of the dock, the nearer the superior points of the shoulders approach to the quarters, so much better able will the carcase be to sustain and bring through the weight; and as much as the shoulders themselves prevail in depth, and the quarters and thighs in length, so much greater will be the velocity of the Horse, because a greater purchase of ground is hereby obtained at every stroke.

It is by this property of length, strength of carcase, and the power of the muscles, that foreign Horse excel all others, and it is by the same advantages they excel each other also, and not by any innate virtue, or principle of the mind, which must be understood by the word blood, if any thing at all is intended to be understood by it; and this is a truth every man would be convinced of, if he would divest himself of partiality to particular blood, and confide in his own observation of Horses and their performances.

Sedbury was an instance of this great power, in whom we find all the muscles rising very luxuriant, and with a remarkable prominence. The famous Childers was a like instance of it. These two Horses were remarkably good, but we have been absurd enough to condemn the blood of both at various times; in one, because he had bad feet, and entailed that defect on the generality of his offspring; in the other, because most people who bred from that lineage, were running mad after a proper cross, when they should have been employed in thinking only of propriety of shape.

I am very far from desiring to be thought a superior judge of this animal, but I will be bold to say, that according to these principles of length and power, there never was a Horse (at least that I have seen) so well entitled to get racers as the Godolphin Arabian; for whoever has seen this Horse, must remember that his shoulders were deeper, and lay farther into his back, than any Horse's ever yet seen; behind the shoulders, there was but a very small space; before, the muscles of his loins rose excessively high, broad, and expanded, which were inserted into his quarters with greater strength and power than in any Horse I believe ever yet seen of his dimensions. If we now consider the plainness of his head and ears, the position of his fore-legs, and his stinted growth, occasioned by the want of food in the country where he was bred, it is not to be wondered at, that the excellence of this Horse's shape, which we see only in miniature, and therefore imperfectly, was not so manifest and apparent to the perception of some men as of others.

It has been said, that the sons of the Godolphin Arabian had better wind than other Horses, and that this perfection of the wind was in the blood. But when we consider any Horse thus mechanically made, whose leavers acquire more purchase, and whose powers are stronger than his adversaries, such a Horse will be enabled by this superiority of mechanism, to act with greater facility, and therefore it is no wonder that the organs of respiration (if not confined or straitened more than his adversaries) should be less fatigued. Suppose now, we take ten mares of the same, or different blood, all which is held equally good, when the Mares are covered, and have been esteemed so long before, and put to this Godolphin Arabian, let us suppose some of the colts to be good racers, and others very inferior to them; shall we condemn the blood of these mares which produced the inferior Horses? If so, we shall never know what good blood is, or where it is to be found, or ever act with any certainty in the propagation of this species, and it is this ridiculous opinion alone of blood, that deceives mankind so much in the breed of racers. If we ask the jockey the cause of this difference in the performance of these brothers, he (willing to account some how for it) readily answers, that the blood did not nick; but will a wise and reasoning man, who seriously endeavours to account for this difference, be content with such a vague, unmeaning answer, when, by applying his attention to matters of fact, and his observation to the different mechanism of these brothers, the difference of their performance is not only rationally, but demonstratively accounted for?

But if this excellence of the racer should really be in the blood, or what is called the proper nicking of it, I must say, it is a matter of great wonder to me, that the blood of the Godolphin Arabian, who was a confined Stallion, and had but few Mares, should nick so well as to produce so many excellent racers; and that the blood of his son Cade, who has had such a number of Mares, and those, perhaps, the very best in the kingdom, should not nick any better than it seems to have done; for I do not conceive the performances of the sons of Cade to have been equal in any respect to the sons of the Godolphin Arabian; though I do not pretend to determine this myself, but shall leave it to the opinion of mankind.

The question then is, whether this excellence of Horses is in the blood or the mechanism; whoever is for blood, let him take two brothers of any sort or kind, and breed one up in plenty, the other upon a barren heath; I fancy he will find, that a different mechanism of the body will be acquired to the two brothers by the difference of their living, and that the blood of him brought up on the barren heath, will not be able to contend with the mechanism of the other, brought up in a land of plenty. Now if this difference of shape will make a difference in the performance of the animal, it will be just the same thing in its consequences, whether this imperfection of shape be produced by scarcity of foot, or entailed by the laws of nature; if so, does it signify whether the colt be got by Turk, Barb, or what kind of blood his dam be of? or where shall we find one certain proof of the efficacy of blood in any Horse produced in any age or any country, independent of the laws of mechanics.

If it should be urged, that these foreign Horses get better colts than their descendants, that therefore the blood of foreign ones is best, I answer, no; for that according to the number of foreign Stallions we have had in this kingdom, there have been more reputed and really bad than good ones, which would not happen in the case of Horses, who come from the same country, and are of the same extraction, if this goodness was in the blood only. But the true reason why foreign Horses get better colts than their descendants, if they do get better, is that (mechanism alike) their descendants from which we breed, are generally such Horses as have been thoroughly tried, consequently much strained, and gone through strong labour and fatigue; whereas the foreign Horse has perhaps seldom or never known what labour was; for we find the Turk a sober grave person, always riding a foot pace, except on emergencies, and the Arab preferring his Mare to his Horse for use and service. As a proof of this truth, let us take two sister hound bitches, and ward them both with the same dog; let us suppose one bitch to have run in the pack, and the other by some accident not to have worked at all, it will be found that the offspring of her who has never worked, will be much superior to the offspring of her who has run in the pack.

All I have now to ask of my brother jockeys is, that for the future, when speaking of these Horses, they will, instead of the phrase HIGH-BRED, say only well-bred, and that they will not even then be understood to mean any thing more by it, than that they are descended from a race of Horses, whose actions have established their goodness: and that I may have leave to prefer my opinion of the mechanical powers of a Horse, to all their opinions concerning blood, which is in reality no more than a vain chimera. If these things are so, have not we and our fore-fathers been hoodwinked all our days by the prevalence of a ridiculous custom, and the mistaken system, when by consulting our own reason and understanding, this mist of error had fled before it? If this mechanical power was considered as it ought to be, it would excite a proper emulation amongst all breeders: and when the excellence in the breed of Horses was found to be the effect of judgment, and not of chance, there would be more merit as well as more pleasure in having bred a superior Horse. Add to this, mankind by applying their attention to this mechanism of animals, would improve their judgment in the laws of nature, and it would not only produce a much better breed of racers than any we have yet seen, but the good of it would extend to all sorts of Horses throughout the kingdom of what kind soever. It is a cruel thing to say, but yet a very true one, that amongst the present breed of Horses in this nation, a man of any tolerable judgment can hardly find one in fifty fit for his purpose, whether designed to draw or ride; whereas if the purchasers would endeavour to make themselves masters of this mechanism, the breeders of every kind of Horses must consult it also, or keep their useless ones in their own hands, which I conceive would be a proper punishment for their ignorance.