A TALE OF TWO “TRUE BRITONS”

PEDIGREE FOR TRUE BRITON JR. (SIRE OF FIGURE)

Likewise, scholars of the Arabian horse acknowledge the presence of only half a dozen Arabian horses in the United States prior to the World Columbian Exposition and Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 (“Arabian Horses Come to America,” EQUUS 442). Thus, “Arabians” alleged to have been present in colonial New England—such as “Dey of Algiers,” “Arabian Ranger,” “Lindsay’s Arabian”—were partThoroughbred horses so named in order to draw greater interest and income. The bottom line is that Figure is highly unlikely to have descended from any Arabian and almost equally unlikely to have been sired by any full-Thoroughbred. This is not merely the verdict of history and zoogeography but of common sense, for no description of Figure makes him resemble a Thoroughbred. As Henry William Herbert says, “If True Briton were himself but a half-bred—and I can see no possible