What breed is he?
This stallion, used in colonial breeding in Connecticut and Maryland, is often regarded as evidence that Arabian horses were the basis of our colonial horses. This is not correct. First, no real Arabians entered our country until the 1800s (see O'Dell 2025, Reinventing the Thoroughbred for the history on this.) Secondly, the label Arabian placed on a English horses name was to identify this was a product of their new racehorse breeding program, which was designed to convert their native racehorse into a Oriental based racehorse.
This
This foundation horse was imported into the Connecticut colony under the name Ranger, from England, not Morocco, as is commonly said. The old story was that he was a gift to the ship’s captain, who brought him to America. It was claimed he was a gift from the Emperor of Morocco to this captain and that he was the finest Barb stallion in his stud. There is even a version in which he was allegedly shipwrecked and had to swim to shore. This provenance is a fantasy. Ranger is not a Moroccan Barb, although he might have a line of the Old Moroccan Barb in him, as he was born just as the English were beginning to cross in Oriental to their racehorse. The Barb was never a racehorse breed; it was valued instead as a cavalry mount and for stock work.Instead we have discovered that speed in their racehorse came from the original “native racehorse” bloodlines, a breed documented from before the Christian era as a racer.
So what is Ranger? Is he a Thoroughbred? No, he is not. According to the official English definition of his day, Thoroughbreds had to be descended from the Oriental on both sides of the pedigree and have no lines of anything else. In his day, 1700s, they said pure Oriental, an impossible construction. Later the official definition set by the English court system was five full generations of Studbook registered stock without any other lines, uncontaminated. Ranger fit none of those requirements. So, what is he?
John Wallace located the original notices on this horse and found he was first owned in 1770 by Colonel Willis of Hartford, Connecticut, and was advertised under the name Ranger, and his breeding was announced as “the English stallion of the Barbary breed, bred in England” (Wallace 1897, 94). Was he a Barb? No, there were very few purebred Barbs in England, but it was common at that time to refer to a horse as a Barb or a natural Barb if it had a line of Barb in its ancestry. Contrary to the common consensus it was Barb that was used more often than Arabian in the early lines, the Turkamen came as the next century dawned and was a typesetting cross.
Ranger was born in 1762 in England, what the English would call a “natural barb” and imported in 1766. Where he was from 1766 to 1770, when Willis advertised him, is uncertain; he may have just been a private stallion for Willis and only made available to the public in 1770. Wallace found many discrepancies not only in the story of this horse's origin but also in the dates.He took his information from the Newspaper archives.
Ranger's next published appearance was at his transfer to James Howard, of Windham, Connecticut, in 1778. Howard advertised his acquisition, “The imported Arabian Horse called The Ranger to stand at his stable the season of 1778” (Wallace 1897, 94). Because of this date, 1778, Wallace pointed out that this horse could not have traveled south to Maryland until at least 1779 or later. Notice also, it was in Howard’s care that the title Arabian replaced Barb. It was common practice in this era to refer to any imported English horse as “Arabian” in the colonies, since the English had used the term as a generic brand name to add value to their racing product. Labeling the horses Arabian identified it as part of their new breeding design, which was aimed to convert their native racehorse into Oriental stock.
At the time of his arrival in the colonies, it was quite common to have non-Thoroughbred English horses and racehorses imported; other pre-TB breeding stock you might be familiar with in the back of your pedigrees are Calista, Tamerlane, Johnson's Horse, etc. Even other early imported horses you assumed were Thoroughbred, like Jolly Roger (second dam unrecorded) and Silver Eye (no recorded dam), did not qualify as Thoroughbred. Racehorses in England in this period could be English Running Horses, Scottish Galloway or Thoroughbreds; the Irish Hobby, the fastest of them all, had already been eradicated. By 1700, the Hobby was gone, it is only apparent in the lineages of horses that descended from products of the old Cavalier studs, such as those horse originating from Sedbury and Helmsley studs. But Galloways, pacing and galloping racehorses, were still listed in the English Racing Calendar, up to the late 1700s (Cheny). In this same period, the colonies in America also held both galloping and pacing races on our calendars; the pacing races were called “Galloway Races’ just like they were in England (Maryland Gazette 1739).
When General Washington and Harry "Light Horse" Lee were campaigning in Connecticut, they were impressed by the quality of the horses ridden by the cavalry there, and upon discovering many were the sons of Ranger, they directed Colonel Lindsey to go purchase Ranger, and he brought him to stand stud in Maryland, in 1779 or after, and it was then he was relabeled as Lindsay’s Arabian.
Washington rode a son of Ranger in the Revolution, Blueskin, so he was familiar with these horses. Blueskin was bred by Colonel Dulany of Maryland and was an excellent stamina horse, but tended to be high-strung, so Washington preferred his charger Nelson when he was under fire.
By Ranger’s birth in 1762, the English fad to breed Oriental into the racing stock was in full swing, and that is where the title “Thoroughbred” came from. “The designation of Thorough Bred belongs to racers of pure Arabian and Barb blood” (Lawrence 1829, 9—emphasis mine). Were there any successful racers of pure Oriental blood? No, and it was not from lack of trying. The Duke of Cumberland, breeder of Eclipse and Herod, actually conducted a breeding experiment during this same period, in which he crossed Arabian into his racing stock and gauged the results, finding that the cross diminished speed and ruined the racing capabilities (MacKay-Smith 2000, 151-162). “Cumberland helped direct the experiments leading to the conclusion that line breeding to Arabian strains was producing slower horses racing over 4-mile courses” (2000, 152). Lawrence remarks that after the Godolphin Arabian (1730), no breeder would cross in Oriental because it lessened the racing ability (1829, 266).
If, by 1730, the breeders were not breeding to imported Orientals, as Lawrence states, this would suggest that Ranger was bred from a son of a Barb, or a part-Barb. But observation, racing results, and common sense didn’t slow down the narrative in the slightest. By the time of the establishment of the General Stud-Book, the consensus was that the Thoroughbred was of pure Oriental blood. The insistence on pure Oriental blood in the racehorse resulted in many pedigree inventions because no race winner qualified under this strict definition.
The facts, observations, and breeder's experience, did not slow down this narrative. Almost the entire English racing establishment seemed to agree with Admiral Rous (1795-1877), the highly influential racing spokesperson of the 19th century, when he declared that the English racehorse, the Thoroughbred, is “purely developed from the Arabian horse and without a drop of the indigenous English horse (Lawrence 1829, 67; emphasis mine). A few short years after Rous' proclamation, we can see how deeply this propaganda was embedded in the English racing psyche, and that it had flowed into the minds of our American breeders as well. “Although it is not possible, in every instance, to have the great progenitors of the English and American Turf, directly on both sides to Desert blood, and although it can scarce be doubted that in the very commencement of Turf -breeding, there must have been a mixture of the best Old English blood, probably in great part Spanish by descent, with the true Arab or Barb race, the impure admixture is so exceedingly remote, not within fourteen or fifteen generations—since which the smallest taint has above one sixteenth in a thousand the part of any other blood than that of the Desert” (Herbert, 1857, vol. 1, 122, emphasis mine). There is no evidence that the pre-Thoroughbred racehorse arose from the Oriental; instead, its ancestry is documented as coming from the ancient Celto-Scythian stock (see Kirsan 2025, 5-37 for documentation).
As time went on, the deception became the dogma we all received, even into our modern day. So if you wonder why you grew up hearing that Thoroughbred speed comes from the Arabian, it was because it was the universal belief in the horse industry. Even our great 20th-century equine historian Fairfax Harrison believed speed came from the Oriental. This narrative was never questioned in our day until DNA evidence shocked the racing world with its revelations!
The company line continued into the mid-twentieth century, as the chief English Thoroughbred spokesman of the day, Christopher Prior, strongly and repeatedly stated was that the Thoroughbred was pure Oriental. Here is some of his reasoning: “The explanation probably lies in the fact that the studs of James [Lord] it Darcy at Sedbury, and that of the first and second Dukes at Bucking at Helmsley, Yorkshire, both mainly composed of Arabians of Eastern blood, were originally responsible foremost of these foundation mares” (Prior 1924. 6; emphasis mine). There is no evidence to back up Prior’s outrageous statements; instead, we learn Helmsley (Rutland) bred Hobbies, without a mixture of Oriental. Oriental was not successfully crossed into the English racing product until AFTER the English Civil War (1660). Prior continues on page 8, “It is more than probable that some of the foundation mares, whose history cannot now be ascertained, were pure-bred Eastern animals.” And while he admits there were still Galloways racing in the 18th century, he contends that they must have been crossed with Oriental before there was any record of such a cross! “It may be taken for granted that the running mares [Galloways] would have been crossed with Eastern sires, whereas opportunity occurred, as the advantage was patent… Thus, the mares, some of them tap-roots of our existing breed, probably had often a strain of Eastern blood before it became the fashion [pre-1660] to use it, almost to the exclusion of native bred stallions” (1924, 10; emphasis mine). He presents his case for pure Oriental blood dishonestly as facts which had been already established.
We in the States had our own experts feeding us this same fairy tale as well. As I mentioned above, our bloodstock historian Harrison also believed the Oriental brought speed, and he nonsensically theorized that the Barb brought speed to our native racehorse. The Barb was never a racehorse. But it was our 20th-century spokesman for the Jockey Club, John Hervey, whose opinion seemed to influence most of those who came after him. When he was trying to explain the obvious racing prowess of the colonial pre-Thoroughbred racehorse in the late 1600s (recorded in court documents), like Prior, he claimed those native racers must really be Thoroughbred, which was 50 years before a Thoroughbred was imported here, and therefore he reasoned that the Thoroughbred had to have been imported far earlier than reported (Hervey 1944, 24). He provided no evidence for this rewrite of history.
This industry propaganda was repeated and doubled down on for two hundred years! No wonder most of you and I thought Arabian was the base of the speed and the breed itself, because it was the industry line. But then along came DNA, and their carefully constructed mythology began to crumble, and we, in our day, are discovering the truth about speed, racing ability, and where they come from.
The Arabian does not carry the newly found speed gene, which may explain why it never won a race against the pre-Thoroughbred racer or the Thoroughbred. But the Arabian is one of only three identified breeds that is homozygous in the newly discovered stamina gene (Polasik). The Arabian is rightfully celebrated as a supreme stamina horse, as most of you can attest.
The Arabian comprises only 8% of the Thoroughbred, and overall the Oriental comprises only 35% of the Thoroughbred; the other 65% is the “native racer,” which is the Irish Hobby, Scottish Galloway, and the English Running Horse (Bower 2010, 2012, Hill 2002, 2010). The so-called “Arabian” foundation sires, Godolphin, Darley, and Byerley, are now revealed by Y chromosome tracing to be Turkmen horses (Wallner 2013, 2017).
Coming back to Lindsay’s Arabian, we can see that he is either an English Running Horse, or a Galloway, with a Barb cross; the Irish Hobby was already extinct in the British Isles by his birth. He most probably has a Barb cross on his sire side, but he is not a Thoroughbred.
Sources and References:
Bower, Mim et al. 2010. “The cosmopolitan maternal heritage of the Thoroughbred racehorses breed shows a significant contribution from British and Irish native mares.” Biological Letters, 2010, October 7 (2), 316–320.
_____2012. “The genetic origin and history of speed in the Thoroughbred racehorse.” Nature Communication. 2012. Jan. 24:3:643.
_____2012. “Truth in the Bones, Restoring the identity of the founding elite Thoroughbred racehorses.” Archaeometry. 2012 (A).
Cheny, John, 1733. A Historical list of all horse races run, and of all plates and prizes run for in England and Wales. London: by author.
Harrison, Fairfax. 1934. Early American Turf Stock 1730-1830. Vol. 1 (mares). Richmond: by the author. Old Dominion Press.
_____1935. Early American Turf Stock – Stallions 1730-1830. Vol. 2. Richmond: by the author. Old Dominion Press.
Herbert, Henry William. 1857. Frank Forester’s Horse and Horsemanship of the United States and British Provinces of North America. Vols. 1&2. New York: Stringer & Townsend.
Hervey, John. 1944. Racing in America 1665-1865. vol 1&2. Lexington, KY: Jockey Club.
Hill, Emmeline, et al. 2002. “History and Integrity of Thoroughbred Dam Lines Revealed in Equine mtDNA variation.” Animal Genetics. 2/17/2002, 287–294.
_____2010. “A Sequence polymorphism in MSTN predicts sprinting ability and racing stamina in thoroughbred horses.” 2010/1/20. Plos one. Vol. 5. Public Library of Science.
Kirsan, Kathleen. 2025. American Running Horse – second edition. Lincoln, CA: published by the author.
Lawrence, John. 1829. The Horse in all its Varieties and Uses. London: M. Arnold.
MacKay-Smith, Alexander. 1983. The Colonial Quarter Race Horse. Richmond, V A.: Helen Kleberg Groves, printed by Whitter & Shepperson.
_____2000. Speed and the Thoroughbred- the complete history. Lanhan, MD: The Derrydale Press.
Maryland Gazette. 1739. 9/11/1739, 12/14/1739.
O’Dell, Gary. 2025. Reinventing the Thoroughbred. Louisiana University Press.
Polasik, Daniel et al. 2017. “Detection and Analysis of Polymorphism on the Promate Region of Equine PPARCGIA gene.” The Journal of Animal and Plant Sciences. 27 (2); 2017, 691–695.
Prior, Christopher. 1924. Early Records of the Thoroughbred Horse. London: The Sporting Life and Sportsman.
_____1926. The History of the Racing Calendar and Stud-Book. London: The Sporting Life and Sportsman.
Wallace, John. 1897. The Horse of America in His Derivation, History, and Development. New York: by the author.
Wallner, Barbara et al. 2013. “Tracing male founder lineages in modern horses with Y chromosome marker.” Conference paper. July 2013. PLOS ONE, April 2013, 8 (4), c80015.
_____2017. “Y Chromosome uncovers recent origin of modern stallions.” June 2017. Current Biology. 27 (13).
Washington, George. 2009. The Papers of George Washington. Richmond: The University of Virginia Press.
Weatherby, James. 1791. Introduction to the General Stud-Book. London: by the author.
_____1803. The General Stud-Book. London: by the author.