ENDURANCE OF THE ARAB.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1921, Page 12

ENDURANCE OF THE ARAB.

The tradition ascribing to the Arab horse extraordinary endurance is sustained by abundant evidence. As a recent illustration, a 300-mile test was made in 1919 from Fort Ethan-Allen, Vermont, to Camp Devens, Massachusetts, and the first 'horse to finish was a pure-bred Arab mare named Ramla, which made the distance in 57 hours and 261 minutes; the animal placed second was Kingfisher, three-fourths Arab and one-fourth thoroughbred—an animal, by the way, that Colonel Tompkins rode into Mexico in the expedition in 1916. and which there covered a distance of 575 miles over heated deserts and cold mourn tains. The animal that finished third in the endurance test was also a pure-bred Arab mare, and the one to finish fourth was three-fourths grade Arab, the dam of Kingfisher. In the army tests of 1920 the Arabs again made a remarkable showing. Of Arabs and their derivatives, ten started and five finished. Mr. H. K. Bush-Brown, who presents the case for the Arab in the Journal of Heredity, offers an explanation of the extraordinary endurance of animals of this breed Ixtsed in part on the fact that whereas all other types of horses have 24 vertebrae in the back, the Arab has only 23. This is due us u rule, to the fact that the Arab Jias only five lumbar vertebrae (between the ribs and the pelvis), while *4.11 other families of horses have six. This difference in structure is believed to explain why the Arab, though small, enn carry grea t weight. The anomaly illustrates the relation between structure and function. Lest the shortness of back he taken as the final standard of aristocratic conformation in the equine world, however, it may bp well to add that.the humble donkey shares with the Arab the distinction of having only five lumbar vertebrae.