In his interesting book, “Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates,” Mr Blunt has something to say upon the subject of the treatment of horses by the Bedouins.
The Bedouin, it seems, as a rule does not use either bit or bridle, but controls his horse by means of a halter to which a thin chain is attached that passes round the nose.
Apparently stirrups are unknown to the Bedouin, while in place of a saddle he uses a stout pad made of cotton which he binds on to the horse's back with the help of a surcingle.
Among the many interesting statements in this book is one to the effect that the Bedouin cannot ascertain a horse's age by examining the teeth, and that he has no knowledge of the trick so often resorted to by unprincipled European horse dealers of making false marks on teeth.
Many Chinamen, on the other hand, claim to be able to tell a horse's age from its teeth up to the age of thirty-two.
A point omitted by Mr Blunt is that the Bedouin being, so to speak, born a horseman, is unable to understand how any race of men can exist that cannot ride. Were we to be told that a race of men exist who have never learnt to walk we should be about as much surprised as the Bedouin is.
Our leading authorities upon the history of the thoroughbred are unanimous in asserting that until about a century and a half ago the thoroughbred was unknown in America.
Yet among the famous descendants of the first thoroughbreds imported into the United States we find horses of world-wide renown, such animals, for instance, as Iroquois and Foxhall. These two horses are especially worthy of mention, inasmuch as they achieved success that came near to being phenomenal.
How remarkable the development of the thoroughbred has been in our own country may be gathered from our knowledge that whereas the fee charge for the services of Herod at stud was but ten guineas, and for Touchstone only sixty guineas, to-day the fee for the use of a “fashionable” stallion is frequently from 500 to 600 guineas.
The Committee of the House of Lords that met in the year 1873 to discuss the question of horse breeding did much to encourage the rearing of the very best stock obtainable. The famous race horse, Common, by Isonomy out of Thistle, bred in 1888, made his first appearance as a three-year-old and won for Lord Arlington and Sir Frederick Johnson—his joint owners—the Two Thousand, the Derby and the Leger, a performance that at once places him in one of the most important niches of fame in the latter part of the last century.