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ARABIANS ON BLUEGRASS
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some Arabians. Twentyfour others were brought back by Homer Daven' port, who Hved for awhile with the shieks on the desert, became a tribe member, and returned to the United States with his precious horses. Since 1915, W. R. Brown of New Hampshire imported several; and one of the most active contemporary import' ers is Henry Babson of Chicago. A number of Walter Ross's horses were brought over from Egypt by Mr. Babson. One of the fifteen sizable breeders in this country today is Roger Selby of Portsmouth, Ohio. Any woman who yearns over the adver v_<j^ tisements of fine footwear in \h Vogue will recognize the ~-^^CL name. And she's right.
With such people Arabians are a minor religion. And understandably. They're a beautiful horse — small, fine, spirited, and gentle. Their most remarkable characteristic is not obvious to the layman. He has to be told — and will be, by any devotee of the Arabians. And this is, that the Arabian, the original horse, has one less vertebrae than other horses. This accounts for the admirable arch of his back. (Where the rest of the horses picked up that extra vertebrae wasn't made quite clear. But we didn't want to be niggling. Walter Ross's trainer, Harry Thomas, told us about one lady who niggled. She was an anthropologist and couldn't believe the Arabian actually had one less vertebrae. She wound up in a sanitarium. But maybe the one less vertebrae wasn't the cause of that.)
The Arabian, for all his spirit
and lightness, is not particularly noted for speed. His forte is endurance. Each year in Des Moines and other cities they hold endurance rides during which the more spectacular horses may average around sixty miles per day for five or six days. An Arabian always wins, and the last few years the winner has been an 18-year-old. Eighteen, Walter Ross explained, is in horse-years equivalent to eighty man-years.
The Arabian stands only I4J/2 to 15-1 hands high, which is not very high as hands and horses go; and he will weigh ^, from 800 to a thousand \ pounds. Although he looks Z^j^Lp quite fragile, he can carry as much as one-fourth of his own weight as far as any man can ride.
Walter Ross attributes the Arabian's endurance to the "quality of bone and the way he handles himself". The horse is a featherweight because his bone is hght. But that same bone is fine and strong, and second in density only to ivory. They've tested it to find out. The feet have a flinty hardness; the ankles are wonderfully slim. They look positively brittle, but though the bone is Hght, it is tough.
Arabians can live to be thirty years old, possibly even more. That still gives them longevity superior to human beings. Their thirty is the same as our ninety or a hundred. And a mare may foal as late as twenty-six. One of Walter Ross's mares, 19year-old Beribeh, is now in her thirteenth foaling.