Europe did not know much of these Arab and Barb horses until the Arabs and Moors invaded and conquered Spain. The invasion of Spain began in the eighth century and the rule lasted until into the thirteenth century, though the Moors held Grenada for two centuries later. What became a conquest was begun merely as a raid for rich booty, and, of course, the Arabs, of whom it has been said, “their kingdom is the saddle,” were mounted. The Berbers, of course, took their horses, and it is likely that during those long centuries, it was the first time out of the Sahara that Arabian and Barb horses were bred extensively and their blood united. It is undoubtedly a fact that after the expulsion of these conquerors, Spain was well supplied with excellent horses, horses which assisted the armies of Spain to hold what her navigators had discovered. The pilgrims returning from Palestine, also told of the excellent horses in the East, and the Crusaders, more practical men, had all the evidence that they needed in their battles with the Musselman to enable them to testify to the hardiness and the fleetness of the horses of the desert. And so when lighter cavalry was needed to replace the heavily-armed knights, whose armor the use of gunpowder had made obsolete, the soldiers and statesmen of the seventeenth century knew where to look for the blood that would improve the home-bred horses. It was as difficult then as now to get Arabs and Barbs of the best blood, but some at least were obtained, and from the beginning in England in the earliest years of the eighteenth century we trace back to Eastern horses to find the founders of the wonderful Thoroughbreds, which in their way are the best horses the world has seen. In France, too, there were many importations for the upbuilding of the native stock, but this took a different direction, and we are not so much concerned with it as with the English.