Another of the “immortals” who won the three great races is Gladiateur, a name that recalls to mind a host of thoroughbreds whose fame will be handed down to posterity—Blue Gown, Blair Athol, Harkaway, Ormonde, St Gatien, Robert the Devil, Hermit, Persimmon, Flying Fox, Donovan—the names come tumbling into one's thoughts pell mell; but as the triumphs of these and many other giants of the turf of comparatively modern times have been described in detail again and again in the many volumes devoted to the thoroughbred and his history, they need not be repeated here.
Yet it is worthy of mention that though some few years ago the famous thoroughbred sires in this country included 260 direct descendants of Eclipse, and sixty direct descendants of the Byerley Turk, they included only thirty-six direct descendants of the greatly glorified Godolphin Arabian.
I believe I am right in saying that the cream-white horses which, until comparatively a recent date, were used by the king on state occasions, are directly descended from the celebrated white horses formerly in the royal stables at Hanover.
Allusion to these animals recalls to mind a method of controlling horses that is said to be in vogue still in parts of Austria, where it is spoken of as “the Balassiren” of horses, and that in reality is a method of mesmerising horses before shoeing them.
According to Obersteimer, whose words are quoted in Hudson's “Psychic Phenomena,” the process takes its name from a cavalry officer named Balassa, who was the first to introduce or to attempt it.
Under the circumstances it is interesting to read that among the early Egyptians there were men who could, or who professed to be able to, obtain complete control over horses and other animals by the exercise solely of will power, and that such men were sometimes called in upon occasions when a horse had to be bound.
It therefore seems possible that some at least of the horses sacrificed in the ages before Christ may first have been dazed, if not rendered unconscious, with the aid of some such agency as hypnotism.
Though the Derby and the Oaks were not inaugurated until the last quarter of the eighteenth century—when, as Lord Rosebery tells us, “a roystering party at a country house founded two races and named them gratefully after their host and his house”—horse racing has now for many years been popular in nearly every civilised country, while in some of the uncivilised countries it has long been included among the favourite pastimes of the people.