If this then is the case, shall we be any longer at a loss to account for the deformity of an animal, who, from his infancy, is neglected, starved, and dried up, for want of juices? or shall we wonder that his offspring, produced in a land of plenty, of whom the greatest care is taken, who is defended from the extremity of heat and cold, whose food is never limited, and whose vessels are filled with the juices of the sweetest herbage, shall we wonder, I say, that his offspring, so brought up, should acquire a more perfect shape and size than his progenitor? or if the Sire is not able to race, shall we wonder that the Son, whose shape is more perfect, should excel his Sire in all performances?

But there is another reason why many of the very finest of these foreign Horses cannot race:  our observations of them will shew us, that though their shoulders in general exceedingly incline backwards, yet their fore-legs stand very much under them; but in different Horses this position is more or less observable.  This, (when I considered the laws of nature) appeared to me the greatest imperfection a Stallion could possibly have:  but when this gentleman informed me it was the custom of the Turks always to keep each fore-leg of the Horse chained to the hinder one, of each side, when not in action, I no longer considered it as a natural, but an acquired imperfection.  Shall we now wonder that such an one, though ever so well made in other respects, cannot race in spite of all his blood?  But the custom of the Arabs in this respect, he says, his memory does not extend to.  I well remember this to be the case of the Godolphin Arabian when I saw him, who stood bent at knees, and with his fore-legs trembling under him:  such is the case of Mosco’s grey Horse in some degree.  In our country we frequently see Horses stand pawing their litter under them with their fore-feet; our custom to prevent it is to put hobbles on their fore-legs, and this will produce the same position in a greater or less degree, though not so conspicuous as in some of those foreign Horses, who have been habituated from their youth to this confined method of standing.  His royal highness the duke of Cumberland has a very remarkable instance of this, in a Horse called Muley Ishmael, which is otherwise, the most elegant Horse I ever yet beheld.  Whether this positiion is natural or acquired, will be best determined by his produce.  Suppose now this Horse should be tried, and found no racer, shall he be condemned as a Stalliion, and the fault imputed to his blood; or on the other hand, if his colts are strait** upon their legs, and found to be good racers, shall the perfection of such colt be imputed to the blood of the father, when we can account for speed in the one, and the want of it in the other, from the different attitude of each Horse?  We are further acquainted, that the Horses we call Turks, are in reality Arabs; that the true Turkish Horse, is a large, heavy, majestic animal,