The Darley Arabian, foaled about the month of March, 1702, and his line of distinguished successors, in reality started the long and baffling process which eventually ended in the production of the beautifully shaped animal we see in the modern thoroughbred.
Probably less than fifteen hands, the Darley Arabian was a dark bay descended from the race the most esteemed among the Arabs. Captain Upton maintains that it was of the Ras-el-Fadawi breed, but the mass of the evidence obtainable points rather to its having been a pure Managni.
Certainly the Darley Arabian is one of the most historically interesting horses that has ever been imported into this country. The property of John Brewster Darley, Esq., of Aldby Park, near York, it was bought at Aleppo by Brewster Darley's brother for comparatively a small sum, and sent to England about the year 1705, where subsequently it became the sire of Flying Childers and consequently the great-great-grandsire of Eclipse—three names that stand out in the history of the horse and his connection with the history of this country perhaps more prominently than any other three it would be possible to mention.
Flying Childers, like his sire, was a bay, and Mr Leonard Childers, of Carr House, near Doncaster, who bred him in 1715, soon afterwards sold him to the Duke of Devonshire.
About fourteen and a half hands, Flying Childers is described as “a close-made horse, short-backed and compact, whose reach lay altogether in his limbs.”
Eclipse, as we shall see presently, was the reverse of this, for he had great length of waist and stood over much ground.
According to trustworthy statistics, Flying Childers was the fastest horse that ever ran at Newmarket, while it is stated, on what appears to be good authority, that no faster horse has ever lived.
FLYING CHILDERS, BRED BY MR. LEONARD CHILDERS IN 1715, IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN “THE FASTEST HORSE THAT HAS EVER LIVED”