Mr. Rarey is a farmer from Ohio, in the United States. Five years ago he wrote the little book which forms the text of the following complete account of his system, with pictorial illustrations, which are essential for explaining the means he now employs for subduing the most refractory animals. Without these explanations, it would be extremely difficult for any one who had not enjoyed the advantage of hearing Mr. Rarey’s explanations, to practise his system successfully, or even safely. The original work contains a mere outline of the art, since perfected by five years’ further study and practice. The author did not revise his first sketch, for very obvious reasons.

He was living in obscurity, teaching his system for a few dollars in Ohio and Texas. He never taught in the great cities or seabord states of the United States. When he had imparted his art to a pupil, he bound him to secrecy, and presented him with a copy of his pamphlet. He did not dream, then, of becoming the great Lion of the London Season, and realising from English subscribers nearly 20,000l. It will be observed, that in the original American edition, the operation of tying up the foot is described in one chapter, and, at an interval of some pages, that of laying a horse down, in another; and that neither the difficulties nor the necessary precautions, nor the extraordinary results, are described with the clearness their importance requires.

Mr. Rarey has now very properly released his subscribers from the contract which bound them to secrecy; and it is now in every point of view important that this valuable system of rendering horses docile and affectionate, fit for hacks or chargers, ladies’ pads or harness, or the safe conveyance of the aged, crippled, and sick, should be placed within the reach of the thousands whose business it is to deal with horses, as well as of that large class of gentlemen who are obliged to observe economy while keeping up their equestrian tastes. After all, it is to the horse-breeding farmers and grooms to whom Mr. Rarey’s art will be of the most practical use.

As it is, enough of the system has oozed out to suggest to the ignorant new means of cruelty. A horse’s leg is strapped up, and then the unlearned proceed to bully the crippled animal, instead of to borrow an expressive Americanism “to gentle him.”

Before entering into the details for practising the Rarey system, it may be interesting to give a sketch of the “facts” that have placed Mr. Rarey in his present well-deserved position, as an invincible Horse-Tamer, as well as a Reformer of the whole modern system of training horses a position unanimously assigned to him by all the first horsemen of the day.

Mr. Rarey has been a horse-breaker in the United States from his earliest youth, and had frequently to break in horses five or six years old, that had run wild until that mature undocile age.

At first he employed the old English rough-rider method, and in the course of his adventures broke almost every bone in his body, for his pluck was greater than his science. But he was not satisfied with following old routine; he inquired from the wandering horsemen and circus trainers into their methods (it may be that he was at one time attached to a circus himself), and read every book he could lay his hands on. By inquiry and by study as he says in one of his advertisements “he thought out” the plan and the principles of his present system.

The methods he uses for placing a colt or horse completely in his power are not absolutely new, although it is possible that he has re-invented and has certainly much improved them. The Russian (i. e. Courland) Circus Riders have long known how, single-handed, to make a horse lie down by fastening up one fore-leg, and then with a rope suddenly pulling the other leg from under him. The trick was practised in England more than forty years ago, and forgotten. That no importance was attached to this method of throwing a horse is proved by the fact, that in the works on horsemanship, published during the last twenty years, no reference is made to it. When Mr. Starkey, of Wiltshire, a breeder and runner of race-horses, saw Mr. Rarey operate for the first time, he said, “Why I knew how to throw a horse in that way years ago, but I did not know the use of it, and was always in too great a hurry!” Lord Berners made nearly the same remark to me. Nimrod, Cecil, Harry Hieover, Scrutator do not appear to have ever heard of it. The best modern authority on such subjects (British Rural Sports), describes a number of difficulties in breaking colts which altogether disappear under the Rarey system especially the difficulty of shoeing.

Captain Nolan, who was killed at Balaklava, served in an Hungarian regiment, in the Austrian service, afterwards in our own service in India, and visited Russia, France, Denmark, and South Germany, to collect materials for his work on the “History of Cavalry and on the Training of Horses,” although he set out with the golden rule laid down by the great Greek horseman, Xenophon, more than a thousand years ago “Horses are taught, not by harshness, but by gentleness,” only refers incidentally to a plan for throwing a horse down, in an extract from Baucher’s great work, which will presently be quoted, but attaches no importance to it, and was evidently totally ignorant of the foundation of the Rarey system.

The accomplished Colonel Greenwood, who was equally learned in the manege of the Haute Ecole, and skilled in the style of the English hunting-fields, gives no hint of a method which reduces the time for taming colts from months to hours, and makes the docility of five horses out of six merely a matter of a few weeks’ patience.

The sporting newspapers of England and America were so completely off the true scent when guessing at the Rarey method, that they put faith in recipes of oils and scents for taming horses.

Dick Christian a genius in his way when on horseback unmatched for patience and pluck, but with no taste for reading and no talent for generalizing, used to conquer savages for temporary use by tying up one fore-foot, and made good water-jumpers of horses afraid of water by making them smell it and wade through it; so that he came very near the Rarey methods, but missed the chain of reasoning that would have led him to go further with these expedients.

Mons. Baucher, of Paris (misprinted Faucher in the American edition), the great modern authority in horse-training and elaborate school equitation, under whom our principal English cavalry generals have studied amongst others, two enthusiastic disciples of Mr. Rarey, Lord Vivian and General Laurenson, commanding the cavalry at Aldershott admitted Mr. Rarey’s system was not only “most valuable,” but “quite new to him.”

After Mr. Rarey had taught five or six hundred subscribers, some of whom of course had wives, Mr. Cooke, of Astley’s, began to exhibit a way of making a horse lie down, which bore as much resemblance to Mr. Rarey’s system, as Buckstone’s or Keeley’s travestie of Othello would to a serious performance by a first-rate tragedian. Mr. Cooke pulling at a strap over the horse’s back, was, until he grew, by practice, skilful, more than once thrown down by the extension of the off fore-leg.

Indeed, the proof that the circus people knew neither the Rarey plan, nor the results to be obtained from it, is to be found in the fact, that they continually failed in subduing unruly horses sent to them for that purpose.

A friend of mine, an eminent engineer, sent to Astley’s, about two years ago, a horse which had cost him two hundred pounds, and was useless from a habit of standing still and rearing at the corner of streets; he was returned worse rather than better, and sold for forty pounds. Six lessons from Mr. Rarey would have produced, at least, temporary docility.

Monsieur Baucher, in his Methode d’Equitation, says, speaking of the surprise created by the feats he performed with trained horses, “According to some, I was a new ’Carter,’ taming my horses by depriving them of rest and nourishment: others would have it, that I tied ropes to their legs, and suspended them in the air; some again supposed that I fascinated them by the power of the eye; and part of the audience, seeing my horses (Partisan, Capitaine, Neptune, and Baridan) work in time to my friend Monsieur Paul Cuzent’s charming music, seriously argued that the horses had a capital ear for music, and that they stopped when the clarionets and trombones ceased to play, and that the music had more power over the horse than I had. That the beast obeyed an ‘ut’ or a ‘sol’ or ‘staccato,’ but my hands and legs went for nothing.

“Could any one imagine that such nonsense could emanate from people who passed for horsemen?

“Now from this, although in some respects the same class of nonsense that was talked about Mr. Rarey, it does not seem that any Parisian veterinary surgeon staked his reputation on the efficacy of oils and scents.”

M. Baucher then proceeds to give what he calls sixteen “Airs de Manege,” which reflect the highest credit on his skill as a rational horseman, using his hands and legs. But he proceeds to say “It is with regret I publish the means of making a horse kneel, limp, lie down, and sit on his haunches in the position called the ‘Cheval Gastronomie,’ or ‘The Horse at Dinner.’ This work is degrading to the poor horse, and painful to the trainer, who no longer sees in the poor trembling beast the proud courser, full of spirit and energy, he took such pleasure in training.

“To make a horse kneel, tie his pastern-joint to his elbow, make fast a longer line to the other pastern-joint, have this held tight, and strike the leg with the whip; the instant he raises it from the ground, pull at the longeing line to bend the leg. He cannot help it he must fall on his knees. Make much of the horse in this position, and let him get up free of all hindrance.

“As soon as he does this without difficulty, leave off the use of the longeing line, and next leave both legs at liberty: by striking him on the shins with the whip, he will understand that he is to kneel down.

“When on his knees, send his head well to the off-side, and, supporting him with the left rein, pull the right rein down against his neck till he falls to the near side; when down at full length, you cannot make too much of him; have his head held that he may not get up too suddenly, or before you wish him. You can do this by placing your right foot on the right reins; this keeps the horse’s nose raised from the ground, and thus deprives him of the power of struggling successfully against you. Profit by his present position to make him sit up on his haunches, and in the position of the ‘Cheval Gastronomie.’”

The difference between this and Rarey’s plan of laying down a horse is as great as between Franklin’s kite and Wheatstone’s electrical telegraph; and foremost to acknowledge the American’s merits was M. Baucher.

So little idea had cavalry authorities that a horse could be trained without severity, that, during the Crimean war, a Mademoiselle Isabel came over to this country with strong recommendations from the French war minister, and was employed at considerable cost at Maidstone for some months in spoiling a number of horses by her system, the principal features of which consisted in a new dumb jockey, and a severe spur attached to a whip!

It is true that Mademoiselle Isabel’s experiment was made contrary to the wishes and plans of the head of the Cavalry Training Department, the late General Griffiths; but it is not less true that within the last two years influential cavalry officers were looking for an improvement in training horses from an adroit use of the whip and spur.

From the time of Alexander the Great down to the Northumberland Horse-Breaker, there have been instances of courageous men who have been able to do extraordinary things with horses. But they may be divided into two classes, neither of which have been able to originate or impart a system for the use of ordinary horsemen.

The one class relied and relies on personal influence over lower animals. They terrify, subdue, or conciliate by eye, voice, and touch, just as some wicked women, not endowed with any extraordinary external charms, bewitch and betray the wisest men.

The other class rely on the infliction of acute pain, or, stupefaction by drugs, or other similar expedients for acquiring a temporary ascendancy.

In a work printed in 1664, quoted by Nolan, we have a melancholy account of the fate of an ingenious horse-tamer. “A Neapolitan, called Pietro, had a little horse, named Mauroco, doubtless a Barb or Arab, which he had taught to perform many tricks. He would, at a sign from his master, lie down, kneel, and make as many courvettes (springs on his hind-legs forward, like rearing), as his master told him. He jumped over a stick, and through hoops, carried a glove to the person Pietro pointed out, and performed a thousand pretty antics. He travelled through the greater part of the Continent, but unfortunately passing through Arles, the people in that ‘age of faith,’ took him for a sorcerer, and burned him and poor Mauroco in the market-place.” It was probably from this incident that Victor Hugo took the catastrophe of La Esmeralda and her goat.

Dan Sullivan, who flourished about fifty years ago, was the greatest horse-tamer of whom there is any record in modern times. His triumph commenced by his purchasing for an old song a dragoon’s horse at Mallow, who was so savage “that he was obliged to be fed through a hole in the wall.” After one of Sullivan’s lessons the trooper drew a car quietly through Mallow, and remained a very proverb of gentleness for years after. In fact, with mule or horse, one half-hour’s lesson from Sullivan was enough; but they relapsed in other hands. Sullivan’s own account of the secret was, that he originally acquired it from a wearied soldier who had not money to pay for a pint of porter he had drunk. The landlord was retaining part of his kit as a pledge, when Sullivan, who sat in the bar, vowed he would never see a hungry man want, and gave the soldier so good a luncheon, that, in his gratitude, he drew him aside at parting, and revealed what he believed to be an Indian charm.

Sullivan never took any pupils, and, as far as I can learn, never attempted to train colts by his method, although that is a more profitable and useful branch of business than training vicious horses. It is stated in an article in “Household Words” on Horse-Tamers, that he was so jealous of his gift that even the priest of Ballyclough could not wring it from him at the confessional. His son used to boast how his reverence met his sire as they both rode towards Mallow, and charged him with being a confederate of the wicked one, and how the “whisperer” laid the priest’s horse under a spell, and forthwith led him a weary chase among the cross roads, till he promised in despair to let Sullivan alone for ever. Sullivan left three sons: one only practised his art, with imperfect success till his death; neither of the others pretended to any knowledge of it. One of them is to this day a horse-breaker at Mallow.

The reputation of Mr. Rarey brought to light a number of provincial horse-tamers, and, amongst others, a grandson of Sullivan has opened a list under the auspices of the Marquis of Waterford, for teaching his grandfather’s art of horse-taming. It is impossible not to ask, why, if the art is of any value, it has not been taught long ago?

In Ireland as in England, the accepted modes of taming a determined colt, or vicious horse, are either by a resolute rider with whip and spur, and violent longeings, or by starving, physic, and sleepless nights. It was by these means combined that the well-known horseman, Bartley the bootmaker, twenty years ago, tamed a splendid thorough-bred horse, that had defied all the efforts of all the rough-riders of the Household Cavalry regiments.

Bleeding a vicious horse has been recommended in German books on equitation. In the family Robinson Crusoe, paterfamilias conquers the quagga by biting its ear, and every farrier knows how to apply a twitch to a horse’s ear or nose to secure his quietness under an operation. A Mr. King, some years since, exhibited a learned horse, which he said he subdued by pinching a nerve of its mouth, called “the nerve of susceptibility.”

The writer in the “Household Words” article, to which I have already referred, tells how “a coachman in Kent, who had been quite mastered by horses, called in the assistance of a professed whisperer. After his ghostly course the horses had the worst of it for two months, when their ill-humour returned, and the coachman himself immediately darkened his stable, and held what he termed a little conversation with them, which kept them placid till two more months had passed. He did not seem altogether to approve of the system, and plainly confessed that it was cruel.” Putting shot in the ear is an old stupid and fatal trick of ignorant carters to cure a gibbing horse it cures and kills him too.

The latest instantaneous system which acquired a certain degree of temporary popularity was that introduced from the western prairies, by Mr. Ellis, of Trinity College, Cambridge, which consisted in breathing into the nostrils of a colt, or buffalo colt, while its eyes were covered. But although on some animals this seemed to produce a soothing effect, on others it totally failed.

There can be very little doubt that most of the mysterious “horse-whisperers” relied for their power of subduing a vicious horse partly on the special personal influence already referred to, and partly on some one of those cruel modes of intimidating the animal. It has been observed that idiots can sometimes manage the most savage horses and bulls, and conciliate the most savage dogs at first sight.

The value of Mr. Rarey’s system consists in the fact that it may be taught to, and successfully practised by, a ploughboy of thirteen or fourteen for use on all except extremely vicious and powerful horses.

It requires patience it requires the habit of dealing with horses as well as coolness; but the real work is rather a matter of skill than strength. Not only have boys of five or six stone become successful horse-tamers, but ladies of high rank have in the course of ten minutes perfectly subdued and reduced to death-like calmness fiery blood-horses.

Therefore, in dealing with Mr. Rarey’s plan we are not wasting our time about a trick for conquering these rare exceptions incurably-savage horses but considering the principles of a universally applicable system for taming and training horses for man’s use, with a perfection of docility rarely found except in aged pet horses, and with a rapidity heretofore quite unknown.

The system of Arabia and Australia are the two extremes. In Australia, where the people are always in a hurry, the usual mode of breaking in the bush horses is to ride them quiet; that is, to let the man fight it out with the horse until the latter gives in; for the time, at any rate. The result is, that nine-tenths of the Australian horses are vicious, and especially given to the trick of “buck-jumping.” This vile vice consists in a succession of leaps from all-fours, the beast descending with the back arched, the limbs rigid, and the head as low down between the legs as possible. Not one horseman in a hundred can sit three jumps of a confirmed buck-jumper. Charles Barter, who was one of the hardest riders in the Heythrope Hunt, in his “Six Months in Natal,” says, “when my horse began buck-jumping I dismounted, and I recommend every one under the same circumstances to do the same.”

The Guachos on the South American Pampas lasso a wild horse, throw him down, cover his head with one of their ponchos, or cloaks, and, having girthed on him one of their heavy demi-piqued saddles, from which it is almost impossible to be dislodged, thrust a curb-bit, capable of breaking the jaw with one tug, into the poor wretch’s mouth, mount him with a pair of spurs with rowels six inches long, and ride him over the treeless plains until he sinks exhausted in a fainting state. But horses thus broken are almost invariably either vicious or stupid; in fact, idiotic. There is another milder method sometimes adopted by these Pampas horsemen, on which, no doubt, Mr. Rarey partly founded his system. After lassoing a horse, they blind his eyes with a poncho, tie him fast to a post, and girth a heavy saddle on him. The animal sometimes dies at once of fright and anger: if not, he trembles, sweats, and would, after a time, fall down from terror and weakness. The Guacho then goes up to him, caresses him, removes the poncho from his eyes, continues to caress him; so that, according to the notion of the country, the horse becomes grateful and attached to the man for delivering him from something frightful; and from that moment the process of training becomes easy, and, with the help of the long spurs, is completed in a few days. This plan must spoil as many horses as it makes quiet, and fail utterly with the more nervous and high-spirited; for the very qualities that render a horse most useful and beautiful, when properly trained, lead him, when unbroken, to resist more obstinately rough violent usage.

In a French newspaper article on Mr. Rarey’s system, it is related that a French horse-breaker, in 1846, made a good speculation by purchasing vicious horses, which are more common in France than in England, and selling them, after a few days’ discipline, perfectly quiet. His remedy lay in a loaded whip, freely applied between the ears when any symptom of vice was displayed. This expedient was only a revival of the method of Grisone, the Neapolitan, called, in the fifteenth century, the regenerator of horsemanship, predecessor of the French school, who says “In breaking young horses, put them into a circular pit; be very severe with those that are sensitive, and of high courage; beat them between the ears with a stick.” His followers tied their horses to the pillars in riding-schools, and beat them to make them raise their fore-legs. We do not approve of Grisone’s maxims at the present day in print, but we leave our horses too much to ignorant colt-breakers, who practise them.

The Arabs alone, who have no need to hurry the education of their horses, and who live with them as we do with our pet dogs, train their colts by degrees, with patient gentleness, and only resort to severe measures to teach them to gallop and stop short. For this reason Arabs are most docile until they fall into the hands of cruel grooms.

It was from considering the docility of the high-bred Arab horse and intractableness of the quibly, roughly broken prairie or Pampas horse, that Mr. Rarey was led to think over and perfect the system which he has repeatedly explained and illustrated by living examples in his lectures, and very imperfectly explained in his valuable, original, but crude little book.

It is very fortunate that this book did not find its way to England before Mr. Rarey himself came and conquered Cruiser, and in face-to-face interviews gained the confidence and co-operation of all our horse-loving aristocracy. For had the book appeared unsupported by lectures (or such explanations written and pictorial as this edition will supply), there would have been so many accidents and so many failures, that Mr. Rarey would have had great difficulty in obtaining a hearing, and for many years our splendid colts would have been left to the empirical treatment of ignorant rough-riders.

An accident withdrew the great reformer of horse-training from obscurity.

In the course of his travels as a teacher of horse-taming he met with Mr. Goodenough, a sharp, hard-fisted New Englander, of the true “Yankee” breed, so well-described by Sam Slick, settled in the city of Toronto, Canada, as a general dealer. In fact, a “sort of Barnum.” Mr. Goodenough saw that there was money to be made out of the Rarey system formed a partnership with the Ohio farmer conducted him to Canada obtained an opportunity of exhibiting his talents before Major Robertson, Aide-de-camp to General Sir William Eyre, K.C.B., Commander of the forces, and, through the Major, before Sir William himself, who is (as I can say from having seen him with hounds) an accomplished horseman and enthusiastic fox-hunter. From these high authorities the partners obtained letters of introduction to the Horse Guards in England, and to several gentlemen attached to the Court; in one of the letters of introduction, General Eyre said, “that the system was new to him, and valuable for military purposes.” On arriving in England, Mr. Rarey made known his system, and was fortunate enough to convert and obtain the active assistance of Sir Richard Airey, Quarter-Master General, Lord Alfred Paget, and Colonel Hood, the two first being noted for their skill as horsemen, and the two latter being attached to the Court. From these gentlemen of high degree, Mr. Rarey proceeded, under good advice, to make known his art to Mr. Joseph Anderson of Piccadilly, and his prime minister, the well-known George Rice tamed for them a black horse that had been returned by Sir Matthew White Ridley, as unridable from vice and nervousness. The next step was an introduction to Messrs. Tattersall of Hyde Park, whose reputation for honour and integrity in most difficult transactions is world wide and nearly a century old. Introduced at Hyde Park Corner with the strongest recommendations and certificates from such authorities as Lord Alfred Paget, Sir Richard Airey, Colonel Hood, &c., &c., Messrs. Tattersall investigated Mr. Rarey’s system, and became convinced that its general adoption would confer an invaluable benefit on what may be called “the great horse interest,” and do away with a great deal of cruelty and unnecessary severity now practised on the best-bred and most high-spirited animals through ignorance of colt-breakers and grooms. They, therefore, decided, with that liberality which has always distinguished the firm, to lend Mr. Rarey all the assistance in their power, without taking any commission, or remuneration of any kind.

As the methods used by Mr. Rarey are so exceedingly simple, the question next arose of how Mr. Rarey was to be remunerated when teaching in a city where hundreds live by collecting and retailing news. His previous lessons had been given to the thinly-populated districts of Ohio and Texas, where each pupil was a dealer in horses, and kept his secret for his own sake. Had he been the inventor of an improved corkscrew or stirrup-iron, a patent would have secured him that limited monopoly which very imperfectly rewards many invaluable mechanical inventions. Had his countrymen chosen to agree to a reciprocity treaty for copyright of books, he might have secured some certain remuneration by a printed publication of his Lectures. But they prefer the liberty of borrowing our copyrights without consulting the author, and we occasionally return the compliment. In this instance the author cannot say that the British nation has not paid him handsomely.

After a consultation with Mr. Rarey’s noble patrons, it was decided that a list should be opened at Hyde Park Corner for subscribers at L10 10s. each, paid in advance, the teaching to commence as soon as five hundred subscriptions had been paid, each subscriber signing an engagement, under a penalty of L500, not to teach or divulge Mr. Rarey’s method, and Messrs. Tattersall undertaking to hold the subscriptions in trust until Mr. Rarey had performed his part of the agreement. To this fund, at the request of my friends Messrs. Tattersall, I agreed to act as Secretary. My duties ceased when the list was filled, and the management of the business passed from those gentlemen to Mr. Rarey’s partner, Mr. Goodenough, on the 3rd of May, 1858.

This list was opened the first day at Mr. Jos. Anderson’s, after Mr. Rarey had exhibited, not his method, but the results of his method on the celebrated black, or rather iron-gray, horse already mentioned.

Leaving the list to fill, Mr. Rarey went to Paris, and there tamed the vicious and probably half-mad coaching stallion, Stafford. It is not generally known that having omitted the precautions of gagging this wild beast with the wooden bit, which forms one of the vignettes of this book, he turned round suddenly, while the tamer was soothing his legs, caught his shoulder in his mouth, and would have made an end of the Rarey system if assistance had not been at hand in the shape of Mr. Goodenough and a pitchfork.

Intense enthusiasm was created in Paris by the conquest of Stafford, but 250 francs was too large a sum to found a long subscription list in a city so little given to private horsemanship, and a French experiment did not produce much effect in England.

In fact, the English list, which started so bravely under distinguished patronage, after touching some 250 names, languished, and in spite of testimonials from great names, only reached 320, when Mr. Rarey, at the pressing recommendation of his English friends, returned from Paris, and fixed the day for commencing his lessons in the private riding-school of the Duke of Wellington, the use of which had been in the kindest manner offered by his Grace as a testimony of his high opinion of the value of the new system.

The course was commenced on the 20th March, by inviting to a private lesson a select party of noblemen and gentlemen, twenty-one in all, including, amongst other accomplished horsemen and horse-breeders, Lord Palmerston, the two ex-masters of the Royal Buckhounds, Earls Granville and Bessborough, the Marquis of Stafford, Vice-President of the Four-Horse Driving Club, and the Honourable Admiral Rous, the leading authority of the Jockey Club on all racing matters. The favourable report of these, perhaps, among the most competent judges of anything appertaining to horses in the world, settled the value of Mr. Rarey’s lessons, and the list began to fill speedily; many of the subscribers, no doubt, being more influenced by the prevailing fashion and curiosity, than by an inclination to turn horse-tamers.

But early in April, when it became known that Mr. Rarey had tamed Cruiser, the most vicious stallion in England, “who could do more fighting in less time than any horse in the world,” and that he had brought him to London on the very day after, that he first backed him and had ridden him within three hours after the first interview, slow conviction swelled to enthusiasm. The list filled up rapidly.

The school in Kinnerton Street, to which Mr. Rarey was obliged to remove, was crowded, the excitement increasing with each lesson. On the day that Cruiser was exhibited for the first time, long before the doors were open, the little back street was filled with a fashionable mob, including ladies of the highest rank. An admission by noble non-subscribers with notes, gold, and cheques in hands, was begged for with a polite insinuating humility that was quite edifying. A hatful of ten-guinea subscriptions was thrust upon the unwilling secretary at the door with as much eagerness as if he had been the allotter of shares in a ten per cent railway in the day of Hudsonian guarantees. And it must be observed that this crowd included among the mere fashion-mongers almost every distinguished horseman and hunting-man in the three kingdoms.

It is quite too late now to attempt to depreciate a system the value of which has been repeatedly and openly acknowledged by authorities above question. As to the “secret,” the subscribers must have known that it was impossible that a system that required so much space, and involved so much noise, could long remain a secret.

The Earl of Jersey, so celebrated in this century as a breeder of race-horses, in the last century as a rider to hounds, stood through a long lesson, and was as much delighted as his son the Honourable Frederick Villiers, Master of the Pytchley Hounds. Sir Tatton Sykes of Sledmere, perhaps the finest amateur horseman that ever rode a race, whose equestrian performances on the course and in the hunting-field date back more than sixty years, was as enthusiastic in his approval as the young Guardsman who, fortified by Mr. Rarey’s lessons, mastered a mare that had defied the efforts of all the farriers of the Household Cavalry.

In a word, the five-hundred list was filled, and overflowed, the subscribers were satisfied, and the responsibility of Messrs. Tattersall as stakeholders for the public ceased, and the Secretary and Treasurer to the fund, having wound up the accounts and retired, the connection between Mr. Rarey and the Messrs. Tattersall resolved itself into the use of an office at Hyde Park Corner.

The London subscription list had passed eleven hundred names, and, in conjunction with the subscription received in Yorkshire, Liverpool, Manchester, Dublin, and Paris, besides private lessons at L25 each, had realised upwards of L20,000 for Mr. Rarey and his partner, when the five-hundred secrecy agreement was extinguished by the re-publication of the little American pamphlet already mentioned.

It was high time that it should, for, while Mr. Rarey had been handsomely paid for his instruction, the more scrupulous of his subscribers were unable to practise his lessons for want of a place where they could work in secrecy.

But although the re-publication of Mr. Rarey’s American pamphlet virtually absolved his subscribers from the agreement which he gave up formally a few days later in his letter to the Times, it is quite absurd to assert that the little pamphlet teaches the Art of Horse-Taming as now practised by Mr. Rarey. Certainly no one but a horseman skilled in the equitation of schools could do much with a horse without great danger of injuring the animal and himself, if he had no other instruction than that contained in Mr. Rarey’s clever, original, but vague chapters.

In the following work I shall endeavour to fill up the blanks in Mr. Rarey’s sketch, and with the help of pictures and diagrams, show how a cool determined man or boy may break in any colt, and make him a docile hack, harness horse, or hunter; stand still, follow, and obey the voice almost as much as the reins.

To say that written or oral instructions will teach every man how to grapple with savages like Stafford, Cruiser, Phlegon, or Mr. Gurney’s gray colt, would be sheer humbug that must depend on the man; but we have an instance of what can be done that is encouraging. When Mr. Rarey was so ill that he was unable to sit Mr. Gurney’s gray colt, the boasting Mr. Goodenough tried his hand, and was beaten pale and trembling out of the circus by that equine tiger; but Mr. Thomas Rice, the jobmaster of Motcombe Street, who had had the charge of Cruiser in Mr. Rarey’s absence up to that time, although he had never before tried his hand at Rareyfying a horse, stuck to the gray colt, laid down, made him fast, and completely conquered him in one evening, so that he was fit to be exhibited the next day, when Mr. Goodenough, more suo, claimed the benefit of the victory.

Several ladies have succeeded famously in horse-taming; but they have been ladies accustomed to horses and to exercise, and always with gentlemen by, in case a customer proved too tough.

Before concluding this desultory but necessary introductory sketch of the rise, progress, and success of the Rarey system, it will be as well, perhaps, for the benefit of lady readers, to give a personal sketch of Mr. Rarey, who is by no means the athletic giant that many imagine.

Mr. Rarey is about thirty years of age, of middle height, and well-proportioned figure, wiry and active rather than muscular his complexion is almost effeminately fair, with more colour than is usually found in those of his countrymen who live in the cities of the sea-coast. And his fair hair, large gray eyes, which only light up and flash fire when he has an awkward customer to tackle, give him altogether the appearance of a Saxon Englishman. His walk is remarkably light and springy, yet regular, as he turns round his horse; something between the set-up of a soldier and the light step of a sportsman. Altogether his appearance and manners are eminently gentlemanly. Although a self-educated and not a book-educated man, his conversation, when he cares to talk, for he is rather reserved, always displays a good deal of thoughtful originality, relieved by flashes of playful humour. This may be seen in his writing.

It may easily be imagined that he is extremely popular with all those with whom he has been brought in contact, and has acquired the personal friendship of some of the most accomplished noblemen and gentlemen of the day.

Mr. Rarey’s system of horse-training will infallibly supersede all others for both civil and military purposes, and his name will take rank among the great social reformers of the nineteenth century. May we have many more such importations from America!