The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development

by John Hankins Wallace

Some modern writers make mention of a tradition that still prevails among some tribes as to the origin of the Arabian horse, and it is to the effect that their best horses came originally from Yemen. This tradition is met with in Arabia Deserta, a long way from Arabia Felix, of which Yemen is a portion. While this tradition is of no possible value as evidence, it is suggestive of what might be unearthed in that strange country. The people were not nomadic, but agricultural and commercial, and the cities were rich. The people were well advanced in the arts and comforts of civilized life, and in their cities they had many beautiful temples and palaces. Such a people would of necessity produce learned men who would leave records of their national history behind them, and especially that of such an event as the conversion of the whole people to Christianity. Possibly the researches of scholarly men may yet bring to light more of the facts connected with the embassy from the Emperor Constantius and the introduction of the Cappadocian horses into Yemen, as related in the preceding chapters.

There are many other traditions, so called, that are burnished up and brought out whenever the crafty dealer finds he has a Richards from America, or a Blunt from England, with his mind already made up that all the best horses of the world have come from Arabia. To such a customer, with his mind already at high tension in search for the longest pedigree and the purest blood, the dealer casts his hook in something like the form following:

“When King Solomon had completed the temple he turned his attention to supplying his army with horses and chariots. He searched every nation that had horses for sale and would have none but the very best that the world could produce. He spent much of his time in admiring his beautiful horses, and one day he was so thoroughly absorbed that the hour of prayer passed without his observing it. He felt that this neglect to pray at the proper time was a great sin, and that his horses had led him into it. He did not hesitate longer, but he at once ordered all his horses to be turned loose to the public. Some of my ancestors succeeded in securing six of these mares, and from these six mares all the good horses of Arabia are descended.”

Other dealers are a little more modest in their claims for the antiquity of the pedigrees of their horses, and generously knock off about sixteen hundred years, being content to trace to the mares of the Prophet instead of the mares of Solomon. This still leaves them with a pedigree only about twelve hundred years long, which beats our modern romancers in making stud books. In order to test and select the mares that were worthy of becoming the dams of the best horses, as the story goes, the Prophet shut up a herd of mares, in plain sight of water, and kept them there till they were almost famished with thirst; and then at a signal they were all released at once, and when rushing headlong to the water the trumpet sounds, and notwithstanding their sufferings they turn and align themselves up in military order. In this test of obedience and discipline, it is said, only five of the mares obeyed the signal (some say only three) and thus the mares that obeyed, notwithstanding their sufferings, became justly entitled to the distinctive and honored name of “The Prophet’s Mares.” Another story is told of the particular markings which, in the Prophet’s estimation, indicated the best horses. By one authority he always selected a black horse with a white “forehead,” and some white mark or marks on his upper lip. Another authority says he always chose a bay horse with a bald face and four white legs, and so we might go on till we had embraced every color and every combination of marks, and we would then find that each “authority” had a horse to sell corresponding with the Prophet’s preferences. Now the fact is that Mohammed was neither a horseman nor a horse breeder, and the whole tenor of history goes to show that he neither knew nor cared very much about horses. In his first pilgrimage to Mecca, after the battles referred to above, the privilege for which was secured by negotiation, a hundred horsemen, it is said, were started and kept one day’s journey in advance of the main body of pilgrims. The great numbers following Mohammed on this pilgrimage admonished his old enemies of Mecca of the futility of attempting to resist his power longer, and they fled from the city during the continuance of the ceremonies. A year or two later he summoned all the tribes of Northern and Eastern Arabia to follow him again to Mecca, and they had too lively a sense of their own safety to disobey. Due time was given for preparation, the rendezvous was at Medina, and a vast host from all Northern and Western Arabia congregated there for a purpose that might be to fight, or it might be to pray. Mohammed mounted his camel and the word was passed, “On to Mecca.” As against such a multitude the Meccans saw that resistance was hopeless, and the city was surrendered without either side striking a blow. Arrayed in great splendor and mounted on his camel, the Prophet made the requisite number of circuits round the holy place and then entered and ordered all the idols that had been set up there to be destroyed, and his followers then shouted, “Allah is Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet!” Thus he became master of all Arabia—and woe to the Christian or the Jew who stood in his way. Two years afterward he died, and there is nothing in his life or history to indicate that he ever owned a horse or that he ever mounted one, except on a single occasion. In the ten short years of his public life he had something more important on hand than to determine how to breed horses.

In studying the Arabian horse in the light of what he has done and what he has failed to do, we are indebted to English writers for little snatches of experiences extending back for a period of about two hundred and fifty years. The earliest English writer who has had anything to say about the Arabian horse was the Duke of Newcastle, who seems to have known a great deal about the various types and breeds of horses of his day. During the period of the Commonwealth it appears he devoted his time, in the Netherlands, to training horses in the manege of that day. From his experience in this employment he became an expert in the form, structure, and docility of the different kinds of horses that he handled. When Charles II. was brought back and placed upon the throne, the duke also came to his own, and being a personal friend of the king he became his counselor and adviser in all matters relating to the improvement of the horses of the realm. In 1667 the duke published his famous book upon the horse, in which he speaks right out on any and every question that he touches. There can be no doubt that he knew more about horses and horse history than any man of his day. In speaking of the Arabian horse he says: “I never saw but one of these horses, which Mr. John Markham, a merchant, brought over, and said he was a right Arabian. He was a bay, but a little horse, and no rarity for shape, for I have seen many English horses far finer. Mr. Markham sold him to King James for five hundred pounds, and being trained up for a course (race), when he came to run every horse beat him.”

It is generally held that this Markham Arabian was the first of that breed ever brought to England, and this seems to be established by the fact that historians antedating his arrival make no mention of any Arabian horse before this one, and those following always speak of this horse as the first. In speaking of the powers of endurance of the Arabian horse, the duke says: “They talk they will ride fourscore miles in a day and never draw the bridle. When I was young I could have bought a nag for ten pounds that would have done as much very easily.” The duke’s masterful knowledge of the subject, as well as his special official relations to the king, gave him control of whatever was done or attempted in the direction of improving the racing stock of England. Tradition informs us that “King Charles II. sent abroad the master of the horse to procure a number of foreign horses and mares for breeding, and the mares brought over by him (as also many of their produce) have since been called Royal Mares.” It is very doubtful whether any such importation was ever made. The question has been discussed, from time to time and even recently, but nobody has ever yet discovered who was “Master of the Horse,” to what country he was sent or what the character of the mares he brought home, or where he got them. The fair presumption is that these “Royal Mares” were myths and that they were created merely for the purpose of putting a finish on certain very uncertain pedigrees, just as a trotting-horse man would finish a pedigree that he knew nothing about by saying, “out of a thoroughbred mare.” As a matter of course it has always been assumed that these “Royal Mares” were of distinctively pure Arabian blood. But, if we admit that such an importation was really made, we must consider that it was made under the direction and control of the Duke of Newcastle, the king’s mentor in all horse affairs, and this is sufficient proof that there was no Arabian blood about the “Royal Mares.” As the size of the English race horse and especially his weight of bone commenced to increase soon after this time, it strikes me as probable that this was the wise and guiding motive of the duke in making his selections of the “Royal Mares.”

When we come down a little nearer to our own times and step across the border from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century, we are still in the realm of traditions, and many of them very preposterous. The deceptions practiced in nomenclature were so common as to be well-nigh universal. Everybody who owned a foreign horse must have “Arabian” attached to his name. To illustrate this evil and the misleading effects flowing from it, I will give two instances of the most famous horses in all English history. The Darley Arabian and the Godolphin Arabian stand pre-eminent and before all others as progenitors of the English race horse. The former of these two was purchased at Aleppo, in Asia Minor, and brought to England in 1711, by Mr. Darley of Yorkshire who secured him through a brother in trade in that region. He was the sire of Flying Childers and many others, and his blood carried from generation to generation. Aleppo is in Northern Syria and far distant from Arabia. At one time it was embraced in Armenia Minor, the original home of the horse, and adjoined Cappadocia and Cilicia, all famous for the excellence of their horse stock more than two thousand years before there was a single horse in Arabia. Upon the restoration of the ancient Theban line of Pharaohs in Egypt, at the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, no time was lost by Thutmosis I. in leading a great army into Northern Syria for no other purpose that is apparent except to replenish and reinvigorate the horse stock of Egypt, from the region of Aleppo and further east, for this is the region from which they had secured their original stock. His successors pursued the same course, year after year, and the number of horses and chariots captured in battle, as well as the number of mares sent as tribute by the frightened people, were duly recorded in the annals of their achievements. If the Darley Arabian, so called, bore any relationship whatever to the Arabian horse, it can only be established by tracing him back to some one of the animals in Cappadocia that the Emperor Constantius sent to Arabia in the year A.D. 356. A writer of the seventeenth century, Dr. Alexander Bursell, in speaking of Aleppo, says: “Formerly this part of the country was famous for fine horses; and though many good ones are still bred here, it may be said they are much degenerated.” This is the observation of an intelligent man, written and published in 1756, about forty years after Mr. Darley’s horse was brought from there.

The other illustration is that of Godolphin Arabian. As a progenitor of race horses this was the greatest horse of his century, or indeed of any other century in the history of the English race horse. He died in 1753, and absolutely nothing is known of his origin or his early history. The story is generally accepted, and I suppose is true, that he was bought out of a cart in Paris, as an act of humanity, by a Mr. Coke, taken to London, presented to Mr. Williams, the keeper of a coffee-house, and passed from him to Lord Godolphin, who kept him till he died. The story that he was presented to Louis XV. by the Bey of Tunis in 1731 has never been verified in any manner, and breaks down on the vital point of date. Some intelligent Englishmen insist that he must have been an Arabian, while others insist that he must have been a Barb, while no man knows whether he was either one or the other. With the most prominent horses of the nation and of their century thus used to mislead the public mind as to their lineage, what are we to expect from the great ruck of the obscure and less prominent? But, as a more elaborate and methodical discussion of this topic will be found in the chapter on the English and American Race Horse, we will now turn our attention to the actual experiences with the Arabians in recent times.

When we come down to the present century we get into the era of newspapers that really begun to give the news, and thus educate their readers, not very authentically, but circumstantially, in what was passing in the world in every department of knowledge and enterprise. Under these wide sources of information, a few authentic experiences will serve to illustrate the true status of the Arabian horse and his influence, or lack of influence, on English and American horses. More than twenty years ago the Prince of Wales made a royal progress through Her Majesty’s dominions in the East. The enthusiasm was unbounded and he was loaded down with many valuable presents, among them several elegant, high-caste Arabian horses. It appears that some of these horses had already won reputation and money on the turf, and were considered the very best that could be found in the East. On their arrival they were greatly admired and praised, especially by the sporting friends of the prince, who seemed to have no doubt, nor did they conceal their opinions, that they could beat any horses in all England. This was a conclusion that a great many racing men, with longer memories, could not accept, and after a good deal of diplomacy a match was finally concluded between the prince’s best horse and an old horse that was third or fourth-class, in his prime, but was unsound and liable to break down any time he was extended. The prince was popular, had many supporters, and much money was pending. The old horse was patched up as well as possible, the day came, the race was started, and the old cripple was so much faster than the Arab that his managers had the hardest work in the world to prevent him from running clear away and disgracing the prince. This account of the race I had from one of the most eminent and successful trainers that England has produced. He witnessed the race and knew all the facts concerning it. Notwithstanding the popularity of the prince and the universal feeling of loyalty toward him, it was a long time before his Arabs ceased to be a laughing-stock among horsemen.