IMAGES OF THE “THREE FOUNDING STALLIONS”
Rather than being fuzzy and “impressionistic,” equestrian portraiture in the 17th and 18th centuries was reliably realistic, and we can use it to gain insights into the real nature of the horses pictured. The most unrealistic part of many of these paintings is the turbanned “Bedouin” groom placed in the scene in order to insinuate the horse’s “Arabian” ancestry. The conformation of the horse in Wootton’s 1700 portrait of the stallion belonging to Captain Byerley, however, points to the animal’s real breeding, which was Turcoman: height over 14 ½ hands; straight, hard legs with wide, clean joints; clean throatlatch and fine, flat neck set over long “slashing” shoulders; mediumlength back; long pelvis with prominent ischial tuberosities.
Wootton’s portrait of the Darley “Arabian” (painted about 1706) does not attempt to fool the viewer with a groom costumed as a Middle Easterner, perhaps because the Darley was convincing enough all by himself: His croup is indeed more level, the tail carried higher, than in most other horses that could be seen in England at the time. By all reports, the Darley was a very beautiful animal, and DNA studies aside, I think we need not doubt that he carried Asil blood in some measure, perhaps as much as 25 percent.
Chronologically, the last “foundation” stallion was the Godolphin. Like the Darley and many other horses of his day, he was called an “Arabian” by English breeders, but it is evident from his conformation that this could not have been the case. We have no image of the Godolphin that was painted in life. The best-known engraving, presented here, is by John Scott after a painting by George Stubbs, which in turn was based on earlier works. Despite its derivative nature, the image jibes with contemporary descriptions of the horse.
Conformation points that differentiate him from the typical Arabian include the heavily crested neck and the low shoulder angle. The horse’s huge pelvis, heavily muscled over the top, was also noticed by people who examined the horse in life. Historian Mackay-Smith presents convincing evidence that the Godolphin was of TurcomanArabian extraction (and that is the way I have listed this horse in the pedigrees accompanying this article); nonetheless, I feel compelled to point out that the exceedingly heavy crest and remarkable muscling of the haunches actually recall the Hobby and English Running-Horse more than they do the typical Turcoman. Could the horse delivered to the Earl of Godolphin, who so greatly influenced the subsequent development of the Thoroughbred, actually have been the son of a Turcoman-Arabian purchased in France, out of one of Edward Coke’s English Running-Horse mares?