Thoroughbred

BREED DESCRIPTION

Height: Variable. May be as small as 14.2hh or over 17hh. Average 16-16.2hh.

Colour: All solid colours, the most common being bay, chestnut and brown. Also grey, black and roan. White markings are permissible.

Conformation: Variable, but the best specimens have excellent conformation characterized by a refined, intellingent head; elegant neck; well-sloped shoulders; short, strong body with great depth through the girth; strong, muscular hindquarters with well-set tail; clean, hard legs with well let-down hocks and a minimum of 8 of bone below the knee.

The life of man has been inextricably interwoven with that of the horse for more than 4,000 years but in all that time no achievment has excelled the ‘invention’ of the Thoroughbred. Quite apart from being the world’s supreme racehorse, the Thoroughbred has played a vital part in the upgrading of numerous old horse and pony breeds and in establishing as many new ones.

Henry VII set the process in motion during the sixteenth century when he founded the famous Royal Paddocks at Hampton Court. His daughter, Elizabeth I, founded another stud at Tutbury, in Staffordshire. Both monarchs imported horses from Spain and Italy to cross with native stock. Under subsequent monarchs – James I, Charles I and Charles II – horse breeding and racing gained impetus. By the beginning of the seventeenth century regular race meetings were being staged at Newmarket, Chester, Doncaster and Lincoln. Many noblemen took up the breeding of horses for racing, sending agents overseas to seek good stallions. Records of the time repeatedly refer the Barb, Barbary, Arabian, Hobby and Galloway horses (the Irish Hobby and the Scottish Galloway were famous ‘running’ horses of the day) – and it is on this blood that the Thoroughbred was founded.

The exact breeding of the Thoroughbred’s forebears will never be known since horses changed names when they changed hands and the terms ‘Arabian’, ‘Barb’ and ‘Turk’, were frequently asked inaccurately. However, what is certain that during the last quarter of the seventeenth century and the first quarter of the eighteenth, Englishmen or their agents bought a number of eastern stallions, crossed them with English mares of mixed pedigree and started a dynaty of great racehorses. The most famous of these stallions were the Byerley Turk, the Darley Arabian and the Godolphin Arabian, who are recognized as the foundation fathers of the Thoroughbred. In 1781 An Introduction to a General Stud Book appeared and following the publication of several more of these preliminary editions, there came, in 1808, Volume I of the General Stud Book (or in the equivilent official Thoroughbred Stud books in other countries).

The Thoroughbred is a handsome horse, alert, spirited and full of precence. It has an easy, ground-covering stride at the gallop and possesses boundless courage and immense stamina, qualities which stand it in good stead on the racehorse, in the hunting field and in three-day evnting.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Byerley Turk was captured by Captain Byerley at Buda in the 1680’s, ridden by him at the battle of the Boyne and sent to England to stand at Stud. His great-grandson Tartar sired Herod, one of the most important sires in Thoroughbred history. The Darley Arabian, foaled 1700, was acquired by Thomas Darley and sent to England from the Syrian port of Aleppo. He was responsible for the Eclipse line – Eclipse was one of the greatest racehorses of all time. The Godolphin Arabian was foaled in the Yemen in 1724, exported toTunis via Syria and later given by the Bey of Tunis to the King of Frace, who subsequently sold him to Edward Coke, from Derbyshire. He was eventually acquired by Lord Godolphin and was responsible for founding the Matchem line. The Herod, the Eclipse and the Matchem lines, plus the Highflyer (Highflyer was a son of Herod) are the four principal tail-male lines of the modern Thoroughbred.

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