Darley Arabian
| Darley Arabian | |
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| Race: | Arabs |
| Father: | |
| Mother: | |
| Mother, father: | |
| Gender: | stallion |
| Year of birth: | 1702 |
| Year of death: | 1719 |
| Country: | England |
| Colour: | brown |
| Stick measure: | over 150 cm |
| Owner: | James Brewster Darley |
Darley Arabian is one of the three founder stallions of the English thoroughbred . The Arab stallion was probably born in Syria in 1700 and exported to England in 1704 by the English merchant Thomas Darley, where he was used as a sire on a small state stud owned by the Darley family. His offspring stood out for their great racing performance, so that they played a dominant role in the breeding of the English thoroughbred. According to a study published in Animal Genetics in 2001 and subsequently confirmed several times, 95% of all English thoroughbreds can be traced back to this stallion in the paternal line alone. At least in the paternal line he has the two other founder stallions of the English thoroughbredByerley Turk and Godolphin Barb largely ousted.
origin
Darley Arabian was probably born in Syria in March or April 1700 and was bought by a nomadic Bedouin tribe around the middle of 1702 by Thomas Darley , from whom he owes his name . In 1704 Darley, who traded in fabrics as a member of the Levant Company in Aleppo , had the stallion transported from İskenderun by ship to England to his father. Possibly this was done as compensation for helping out Darley, who had run into financial difficulties, years earlier with a payment of £ 500 . Transporting an Arab horse was a violation of the laws of the Ottoman Empire , but the degree to which this export ban was enforced varied.
Unlike his brother, who had been sent to England the year before, Darley Arabian survived this transport, in which horses were tied up inside the ship for weeks in hammocks. The risk that the young stallion would not survive the transport was outweighed by the value the horse had in England. Since around the end of the 16th century, oriental breeds became increasingly popular there, and stallions from the Middle East were traded at high prices. In the inheritance dispute after the death of Thomas Darley, who died in debt, the stallion was given a value of £ 300 , the equivalent of 40 good carriage horses.
In a letter that still exists, dated December 21, 1703, Thomas Darley wrote to his brother John: “ ... of the most esteemed race among the Arrabs, both by sire and dam, and the name is called Mannicka ” ( "... of the most highly valued race among the Arabs, both from father and mother side, and the name is Mannicka"). Muniquis (or Mannicka, as Thomas Darley writes) are not classic or thoroughbred Arabs, but descend from Turkmen horses ( Akhal-Teke ), which were purely bred in Syria and Iraq for racing purposes, like Carl Raswan in his standard work Trinker der Air writes.
Stallion
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It is not known exactly when Darley Arabian arrived in England. It is certain that it first set foot on European soil in Kinsale, Ireland, around the summer of 1704 and was probably transported from there after a few days. His arrival at Aldby Park , Buttercrambe , the seat of the Darley family, was not precisely documented - after all, around 200 stallions from North Africa, the Levant or Turkey had come to England since 1649, so the arrival of another stallion did not attract particular attention. Most of the imported stallions, like Darley Arabian, were on country estates and stud farms in North Yorkshire, which is known for its horse breeding .
According to the General Stud Book , the stallion was used for breeding between 1706 and 1719. The Darley family only owned a handful of broodmares, so the stallion only covered a few mares each spring. Only about twenty foals sired by Darley Arabian are proven. The number of his direct descendants was presumably greater, but in the General Stud Book, begun only in 1791, only twenty of his descendants were found worthy of inclusion. Two of the offspring, Aleppo and Almanzor, performed well in races and were later used successfully in breeding. Whistlejacket was even more successful, winning a horse race in York in 1712 and then being sold by the Darley family to breeder Leonard Childers. Childers was so impressed with Whistlejacket that he had his mare Betty Leedes bred twice by Darley Arabian at the Darley family stud. Flying Childers , the stallion born in 1714 from this pairing, is considered to be one of the first true racehorses. In the six races he ran from 1721 to 1723, he remained undefeated. He was ultimately sold by Childers to William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire , and after completing his racing career only covered the mares in the Duke's stud. Most of today's English thoroughbred horses do not go back to Darley Arabian through this stallion, but through his full brother Bleeding Childers , who never ran. The stallion got his name because he began to bleed from his nostrils as soon as he underwent the exertion of a race. But he turned out to be the more successful sire. Darley Arabian is the direct ancestor of Eclipse through the stallions Bleeding Childers, Squirt and Marske . the racehorse dominating England in the second half of the 18th century.
Darley Arabian was champion of sire horses in England and Ireland due to the racing success of Flying Childer in 1722 . The total winnings of his sons and daughters in the past year are determined for each stallion . Prize money is counted which the sons and daughters have won in flat races in England and Ireland.
By 2016, 87 stallions from his stallion line had topped the stallion lists in England and Ireland a total of 187 times. In comparison, only 17 stallions that were 59 champions go back to Byerly Turk. The last stallion from this line to be champion of the father horses was Tetratema in 1929. Twelve stallions from the direct line of Godolphin Arabian were 32 times champion, the last time the stallion Chansonnier was in 1964.
literature
- Christopher McGrath: Mr. Darley's Arabian - High Life, Low Life, Sporting Life: A History of Racing in Twenty-Five Horses . John Murray, London 2016, ISBN 978-1-84854-984-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thoroughbreds with clear relationships ( memento of March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ 95% of thoroughbreds linked to one superstud. In: New Scientist. September 6, 2005, accessed April 24, 2018 .
- ↑ McGrath: Mr. Darley's Arabian . Chapter The most esteemed race amongst the Arrabs both by Syre and Dam. E-book position 333.
- ↑ McGrath: Mr. Darley's Arabian . Chapter The most esteemed race amongst the Arrabs both by Syre and Dam. E-book position 301.
- ↑ McGrath: Mr. Darley's Arabian . Chapter The most esteemed race amongst the Arrabs both by Syre and Dam. E-book position 521.
- ↑ McGrath: Mr. Darley's Arabian . Chapter The cross strains now in being are without end. E-book position 583.
- ↑ McGrath: Mr. Darley's Arabian . Chapter The cross strains now in being are without end. E-book position 677.
- ^ Champion Sires in Great Britain and Ireland. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 6, 2016 ; Retrieved April 29, 2017 .