18. The Cullen Arabian was brought over by Mr. Nosco and was sire of Mr. Warren’s Camillus, Ld. Orford’s Matron, Mr. Gorges’ Sour Face, the dam of Regulator, etc., etc.
19. The Coomb Arabian (sometimes called the Pigot Arabian and sometimes the Bolingbroke Grey Arabian) was the sire of Methodist, the dam of Crop, etc., etc.
20. The Compton Barb, more commonly called the Sedley Arabian, was sire of Coquette, Greyling, etc.
(Additions in 1808 Edition.)
21. King James the First bought an Arabian of Mr. Markham, a merchant, for 500gs., said (but with little probability) to have been the first of the breed ever seen in England. The Duke of Newcastle says, in his treatise on Horsemanship, that he had seen the above Arabian, and describes him as a small bay horse, and not of very excellent shape.
23. Bloody Buttocks; nothing further can be traced from the papers of the late Mr. Crofts than that he was a grey Arabian, with a red mark on his hip, from whence he derived his name.
23. The Vernon Arabian was a small chestnut horse. He covered at Highflyer Hall, and was the sire of Alert, etc. Alert had good speed for a short distance.
24 & 25. The Wellesley Grey, and Chestnut Arabians (so called) were brought from the East, but evidently not Arabians. The former was a horse of good shape, with the size and substance of an English hunter.
This list of twenty-seven different animals, which for the sake of convenience I have numbered, was presented to the public more than a hundred years ago by Mr. Weatherby, the highest of all English authorities, as the foundation stock from which the English race horse was propagated. The uniform omission of dates of importations, etc., discloses the fact that the compiler had no accurate knowledge of the animals or their history, and that he was dependent largely upon very uncertain traditions for his information. It must not be understood that the animals in this list were contemporaneous, or that the list embraces all the foreign animals that were brought in, but only those that were recognized as of value in founding the breed.
To understand just what we have to consider, I will place here, in juxtaposition to the above list, the remark of Admiral Rous, at one time the great race-horse authority of England, which expresses the popular opinion as to the origin of the race horse, that is practically universally held in all lands. The admiral says: “The British race horse is a pure Eastern exotic whose pedigree may be traced two thousand years, the true son of Arabia Deserta, without a drop of English blood.” To reach the approximate truth on the issue here made, and to puncture this extravaganza is the work now before us.