All we are told about the Darley Arabian is this. Mr. Darley of Yorkshire, had a brother who was a merchant in Aleppo. This brother brought home a black bay[1] stallion some 14 hands in stature, about 1700. He became in 1707 the sire of Flying Childers, the greatest race-horse in England and the progenitor of most of those on the running turf in America and England to-day. The dam of Flying Childers was also rich in Oriental blood, as she was an inbred Spanker and Spanker was by D’Arcy’s Yellow Turk from the daughter of Morocco Barb and Old Bald Peg, the latter being by an Arab horse from a Barb mare. So we see that this first great English race-horse was almost of pure Eastern blood. Footnote 1: A very unusual color for a Nejdee. Of Markham’s Arabian we only know that he met with the disapproval of the then Master of Horse, the Duke of Newcastle, and had scant chance. Of the Godolphin Barb we know very little previous to his coming to England, where he was held in such little esteem that he was used as a teaser for Hobgoblin. We are told, however, that he was first taken to France and held of such little account that he was used as a cart horse, in Paris. He was finally brought to England about 1725, and became the property of Lord Godolphin. He was a brown bay, 15 hands high, and with an unnaturally high crest. He served Roxana in 1731, the produce being Lath, next to Flying Childers the greatest horse in England in the first half of the eighteenth century. Roxana was by Bald Galloway, her dam sister to Chanter by the Alasker Turk from a daughter by Leedes’s Arabian and a mare by Spanker. Here we see again the value of these crosses of Oriental blood. From the mating of the Godolphin Barb and Roxana also came Cade, the sire of Regulus, the grandam of that most marvelous horse, Eclipse. When all this had happened the English were sure they were on the right road. And they have kept on that road with great persistency, not going back, however, in my opinion, frequently enough to the pure Nejdee and Berber stock for fresh infusions. That they have not done this is natural enough, however. A breeder wants results quickly. To get a collateral strain from fresh Arab and Barb blood equal to the present thoroughbred would probably take fifty years. No private breeder cares to do that. And the English government does not officially breed horses. The French, the Austrians and the Russians all, however, have agents in Arabia trying to buy the animals that are best suited to do just what I have suggested. And they all succeed. It is too much, however, to expect this from a private breeder.[2] Footnote 2: