Arabian horse

“ The Arabian horse is generally much more intelligent and docile than those of our country. But this is not altogether on account of his good blood. The Arab makes a friend and companion of his horse. The animal so constantly associates with man, is talked to so much, and treated so kindly, that he sometimes shows the most surprising intelligence. He will follow his master like a dog ”

“ The horses were compelled to labour unceasingly from sunrise until evening, without even receiving a feed during the day’s journey. The Arabian horse is the only one capable of enduring so much hardship. In the evening these poor creatures are relieved of their burdens, but very seldom of the saddle; for the Arabs assert that it is less dangerous for the horse to bear the saddle day and night, than that it should be exposed when heated by the day’s toil to the cold night-air. ”

“ Occasionally an Arabian horse is brought to this country, but we do not often see them. In fact, they would not be as valuable here as those horses which, besides Arabian descent, have also other characteristics which especially adapt them to our country and climate.
In Arabia the horse, as an individual, especially if he happens to be of the purest breed, is more highly prized than in any other part of the world. It is almost impossible to buy a favorite horse from an Arab, and even if he can be induced to sell it, the transaction is a very complicated one. ”

“ The remote period to which we can trace back the Horse being employed as a domestic animal, renders it very difficult to determine its original country. Nor is it possible to state where the finest species may be found. The Arabian Horses have long been famous for their beauty and intelligence, the English for their racing qualities, the Norman Horses for their great strength, and the Breton Horses for their hardiness and good temper. And so on through all the different species of past ages, we might mention special characteristics for which they were famous ”

“ The Arabs, who have bred horses with a view to war for many generations, have handed down a great deal of old-world wisdom on the subject of the horse suitable for war.17 The best Arabian horses are undoubtedly the outcome of centuries of breeding to a type, and that the type suitable to carry a light man throughout a long campaign, to face danger courageously, to possess fair speed, immunity from disease and sickness, especially pulmonary complaints, and to bear the jar of galloping on hard ground. ”

“ The Arabian horse is a hardy animal, "left exposed," says Chateaubriand, "to the most intense heat of the sun, tied by the four legs to stakes set in the ground, and refreshed generally only once in the twenty-four hours. Yet," continues the same writer, "release his legs from the shackles, spring upon his back, and he will paw in the valley; he will rejoice in his strength; he will swallow the ground in the fierceness of his rage, and you recognize the original picture of Job." ”

“ Deservedly high as may stand the Arabian horse for docility and sagacity, it should not be forgotten that, in the absence of all other amusements, the education of the foal becomes a pleasure as well as a business; it thus becomes attached to its biped companions, and takes a pride in enacting all that is required of him. If his rider falls, the horse will stand by and neigh for assistance; if he lies down to sleep, the horse will watch over him 22and give notice of the approach of man or beast. ”

“ Some of the Arabian ballads of horses are among the very few Oriental poems which have acquired universal fame, as that which tells of how the peerless Lahla picked up his captured and bound master and carried him with his teeth back to the tribe, on reaching which he sinks dead, amidst the tears and lamentations of all. Horses, the Koran expressly says, were created for man’s use, but also “to be an ornament unto him”: all the romance, the valour, the deep-seated aristocratic instinct of the Arab, proudest of mankind, is bound up with his horse. ”

“ The Arabian is never known, in a tropical climate, to be a roarer, or to have curbs, the shape, from the point of the hock to the fetlock, being very perfect. It is a remarkable fact, that the skin of all the light-coloured Arabians is pure black, or bluish black, which gives to white horses that beautiful silvery gray colour so prevalent among the coursers of noble blood. Bay and chestnut are also common, and considered good colours. It has been remarked in India, that no horse of a dark gray colour was ever known to be a winner on the turf. ”

“ Where the village ends the agas have almost caught up with the sheikh, but now they are in the plain, the Arabian mare is in her element, off she darts, straight ahead, for here there are neither ditches nor fences, neither rivers nor mountains to delay her course. Like a clever jockey who leads a race, the Arab wishes to ride as slowly and not as quickly as possible. Constantly looking back at his pursuers, he keeps out of gunshot. When they approach he pushes on; when they fall behind, he slows the pace of his horse ”

“ If we wish to see the noblest and finest of all horses we must go from the grassy steppes of the north to the sandy deserts of Arabia, where for thousands of years has been kept the splendid Arab breed, the pride of their masters and the swiftest and most beautiful of the horse tribe. Many of these have been brought to Europe to give their blood to the racing stock. Black Bess, Dick Turpin's noble horse, had much Arabian blood. But the best of these horses are not sold out of their native land, for a true Arab horseman would almost rather sell his soul than his horse. ”

“ Arabia has, for a long time, been noted for the beauty and speed of its horses. It is not strange, however, that the Arabian horse should be the most excellent, when we consider the care and kindness with which it is treated. One of the best stories which I have ever heard of the love of an Arabian for his steed, is that related of an Arab, from whom an English officer wished to purchase his horse. ”

“ In Europe the Arabian horses are classified according to an erroneous and incomplete system. I am thinking especially of their division into Kohilans and Nedshdis. This latter name designates the numerous tribe of Arabs inhabiting the high plateau of the interior of Arabia, and breeding, it is true, excellent horses. But just as little as every Arabian horse is full blooded, just as little every Nedshdi is a Kohilan. ”

“ The qualities that have made the Arabian horse famous are its beautiful proportions, endurance,113 and intelligence. Young colts mingle freely with their owners and attendants, and they need, therefore, only the training to make them saddle-wise ”

“ The Arab horse imparts, also, great endurance to his progeny, and without going back as far as the turf, where we see figuring on the top round of the ladder Arlequin, Zephyr, Valencia, Corysandre the Lorraine, whose dam was an Arabian of Deux-Ponts, Anthony, Eylau, Kasbas, and Palmyre, let us be satisfied with citing in mass, all the fine and spirited breeds of Limousin, Navarre, Bigorre, Tarbes, and Auvergne, showing in every pore the presence of the Oriental blood. ”

“ The attachment of Arabs to their horses, the extreme beauty of these animals, which form part of the family, and are sometimes more precious to their owners than wives or children, have become proverbial. They are managed by kindness; and nothing can exceed the indignation of the owners when they behold any attempt to manage a horse of any kind by means of the whip. It is the Arabian which, imported through Spain, or direct to England, has produced so much improvement in the European stock. ”

“ Then there is a story that has been builded up in our own days by a man who was a Methodist minister before he became a manufacturer of trotting-horse pedigrees in this country. This interesting man in his old age, if he did not resume the occupation of his youth, did study the Bible in the endeavor to show that the Arabian horses never had been much in quality and many in numbers, and that their antiquity 20was not of any importance for they had not been taken into Arabia from Armenia until the third century. ”

“ The Arabs never beat their mares, but treat them kindly, talk and reason with them; they take great care of them, always letting them walk, and never use the spur without the greatest necessity; as soon, therefore, as they feel their rider’s heel they set out with incredible swiftness, and leap hedges and ditches with as much agility as so many does. If their riders happen to fall, they are so well trained that they will stop short even in the most rapid gallop. All Arabian horses are of a middling size, very easy in their paces, and rather thin than fat. ”

“ From the Egyptians, the Moors, the Romans, and Britons to France, Russia, and Prussia we look, finding the horse by each nation had been a national pride—each nation resorting to the same primitive blood from which to create its type, and that primitive was the Arabian. Scientists have theorized, men have written, and boys have imagined in print, as to some other than the Arabian from which to create a type of horse, and yet through all ages we find that Arabian has been the one stepping stone for each advanced nation upon which blood to build its national horse. ”

“ Arabian horses may be known in a moment by their uncommon beauty, their delicate arched necks, waving manes, and long tails; but though a great price is given for them, and they are lodged, and fed, and tended with all the care possible, they cannot be so happy in a king’s palace, as in the tent or hut of their poor masters at home. ”

“ In the legends of the Middle Ages the knight-errant and his gallant steed were inseparable, and together performed doughty deeds of valor and chivalry. In our present more prosaic age, the horse has been trained to such a degree of perfection in speed and motion as was never dreamed of by the ancients or by the knights of the crusades; and there has been given to the world an animal that is a marvel of courage, swiftness, and endurance, while, at the same time, so docile, that the delicate hand of woman can completely control him.
The Arabian is the patrician among horses ”

“ With good young mares who require a horse to give their offspring quality, that is to say, beauty, with courage and stoutness, and with a turn of speed for fast road work, the Arabian is better than any class of English thoroughbreds that are used for cross breeding. ”

“ An Arab mare dropped a filly when in flight; her rider perforce gallopped on and presently saw the foal appear in camp, when it was given to an old woman for nursing and grew up to be famous. The home of the Arab horse is the vast plateau of Al-Najd: the Tahámah or lower maritime regions of Arabia, like Malabar, will not breed good beasts. ”

“ THE ARAB AND THE BARB.—The two principal varieties of foreign Horses which are important for us to consider are the Arab and the Barb. The Arab would not be acknowledged by every one to be perfect in form. The head, however, is inimitable. “The broadness and squareness of the forehead,” writes Youatt, “the smallness of the ears, the prominence and brilliancy of the eye, the shortness and fineness of the muzzle, the width of the nostril, the thinness of the lower jaw, and the beautifully-developed course of the veins, will always characterise the head of the Arabian Horse. ”

“ Although much of the superiority of these horses is attributable to peculiarly favorable conditions of the country where they originated, yet many of their excellent qualities may be traced to kindness and intelligent training by which those qualities were first developed, and through which they have been transmitted until they have become characteristics of the race.
The Arabian understands the value of his horse, appreciates the nobility of his nature, and treats him accordingly. They kiss and caress them ”

“ Such horses were undoubtedly hunted and killed as food by Paleolithic men; and when, many, many thousands of years ago, they had in some degree domesticated them, and began to migrate southward and westward, they took these horses with them. Those people that gradually occupied Persia, Mesopotamia, and the plains of Arabia and North Africa, developed them into riding animals that became perfected in what we know as the Arabian horse. ”

“ Having an Arabian of pure race, the heaviest and finest bodied that can be found, put him to the heaviest and strongest short-limbed mares. Sell the male produce of this cross, unless it has been a perfect success. Be less strict with the fillies, reject a smaller number, and use the good for breeding. As much as their conformation will permit, and in order to fix the Arab blood in a deeper and more indelible manner, some choice specimens may be put either to their sire himself, or to such of the half-brothers as should have proved themselves the best. ”

“ The Arabian.—Of all the countries in the world where the horse runs wild, Arabia produces the most beautiful breed—the most generous, swift, and persevering. They are found, though not in great numbers, in the deserts of that country, and the natives use every stratagem to take them. Although they are active and beautiful, yet they are not so large as those bred up tame. They are of a brown colour, their mane and tail very short, and the hair black and tufted. ”

“ But the horses thus caught, or trained in this manner, are at present very few; the value of Arabian horses all over the world has, in a great measure, thinned the deserts of the wild breed, and there are few to be found in those countries, except such as are tame. ”

“ Such horses as we rode can be raised and trained only on a mountain trail, and if they could but speak, what tales of timidity, stupidity and absurdity they might relate. My own Arabian was a tan-colored beast, shading off to drab and old gold, known in the vernacular of the country as a buckskin horse, and rejoiced in the sweet name of ‘Bird.’ It was a veritable misnomer, for birds do not generally sit down and roll at every piece of green grass or cool water that they come to, nor try to shake their riders off over their necks. ”