The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965 Page: 307
574 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Origin and Development of the Arabian Horse
of many Palominos in Morocco. They are not rare, are not highly
prized, are usually ridden by servants, and are still called "Jewish
horses." Lady Wentworth's bias can be understood, however, if
considered in the political context of English diplomacy. As a
result of the turmoil following the French conquest of Algeria,
the supply of Barbary Arabian horses had dried up in North
Africa. British interest was focused in the Middle-East and In-
dia. The Blunt family, associated with British diplomacy in the
Middle-East for more than a century, acquired Arabian horses
in that area. Such horses were being exported in considerable
quantities from the Persian Gulf area to both India and Eng-
land. It is only logical that English writing should concentrate
on the Middle-Eastern Arabian horse.
It is unfortunate that so much reliance has been placed on
limited English language sources when such a great variety of ma-
terial is available. In legend, Pegasus, the winged horse, was
born in the desert of western Libya. The Iliad records that Dio-
medes acquired from Aeneas two horses "of that breed whereof
Zeus gave to Troas ... because they were the best of all horses
between the daylight and the sun."4 One of the horses was de-
scribed as a bay with a white star on the forehead. With them,
Diomedes easily won the chariot race at the funeral games held in
honor of Patroclus. Only six such horses were known in the
Aegean World, and they were reputed to be the offspring of the
West Wind and of the Ocean.1. The bay color in a country where
all other horses were dun or white, their speed, and the legend
of divine origin plainly set them apart. Speculation apart, the
evidence points to Libya, where, according to Homeric legend,
the Amazons rode them, as the birthplace of the breed.
The Libyan horse did not reach Egypt until about the sixteenth
century, B.C. The first mention of the horse and chariot in Egypt
vaux du Sahara et les mouers du desert (rev. ed., Paris, 1881), and is translated into
English as The Horse of the Sahara and the Manners of the Desert (London, 1863).
1Richard Lattimore (trans.), Iliad of Homer (Chicago, 1951), 135, 462.
See Fairfax Harrison, The John's Island Stud (S. C.), 1750-1788 (Richmond,
1931), 161, for an example of the persistence of the Pegasus legend. The founding
sire of the presently extinct Narragansett Pacer was reputedly found swimming at
sea, far from land. The blood of the Narragansett Pacer came into the American
Saddlebred through Old Hyatoga, brought to Kentucky by the Reverend B. Ben-
nett. Old Hyatoga died in Harrison County, Kentucky, in 1822, at the ripe age
of forty-eight.307
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965, periodical, 1965; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101198/m1/375/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.