A Dissertation on Horses | Page 7

long pedigrees of their Horses
as well as we, but what prooofs 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