The foundation stallions, or foundation sires, of the Thoroughbred breed are those to whom all, or nearly all, modern Thoroughbreds can trace their paternal bloodline. Although by no means the only stallions to be imported into England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries – according to the General Stud Book, first published in 1793, there were over 200 – the names that have gone down in history are the Byerley Turk, Darley Arabian, and Godolphin Arabian.
Believed to have been foaled in, or around, 1679, the Byerley Turk was a dark brown or black horse whose breeding was unknown; despite his name, he was almost certainly of Arabian descent. He was reputed to have been confiscated by English soldier Captain Robert Byerley during the Great Turkish War and later served in the Jacobite-Williamite War in Ireland, including at the Battle of the Boyne. When Byerley retired from military service, the Byerley entered stud at Middridge Grange in Heighington, County Durham and, later, at Goldsborough Hall, near Knaresborough, Yorkshire, where he remained until at least 1701.
Far and away the most influential of the three foundation stallions, the Darley Arabian was, as his name suggests, a bay Arabian horse. He was bought by English trader Thomas Darley in Aleppo, Syria in 1704 and imported to England, where he stood at stud at the family seat at Aldby Park in Buttercrambe, North Yorkshire from 1706 onwards. By 1722, he was the leading sire in Britain and Ireland.
The Godolphin Arabian – so-called because he was eventually bought by Francis Godolphin, Second Earl of Godolphin – was, unsurprisingly, another stallion of Arabian descent. A bay colt, he was foaled in the Yemen in 1724 and subsequently exported to Tunisia, where he was presented to Louis XV of France by the Bey of Tunis. He was subsequently acquired by Englishman Edward Coke and exported to England to stand at Longford Hall, Derbyshire. Coke died in 1733 and the stallion was transferred, via bloodstock agent Roger Williams, to Babraham, Cambridgeshire.