About the Book
It is a singular fact, that although England produces the finest horses in the world, and though the English people have always fancied they understood their management better than any other nation, yet, lately, not only have we all been astonished by the superior knowledge on this subject of a trans-Atlantic cousin, but what is still more surprising, our sporting men have rushed forwards to pay to Mr. Rarey no less a sum than about 15,000l. for exhibiting to them a system of horse-breaking, the philosophy of which is based upon a few simple facts, which, although unreflected on, have ever been lying close before our eyes. Of all animals in creation, there is no one we should all of us be so very sorry to lose as the horse. In peace and in war, on burning sands under the equator, or on eternal snow in the frigid zone, for pleasure or for business, well fed or starving, he is always not only ready, but eager, to the utmost of his strength, to serve a master, but too often inconsiderate, ungrateful to him, and unjust. As soon as his courage is excited, no fall, bruise, blow, or wound, that does not paralyse the mechanism of his limbs, will stop him; indeed, with his upper and lower jaw shot away, and with the skin dangling in ribands, we have seen him cantering, apparently careless and unconscious of his state, alongside of the horse artillery gun from which he had just been cut adrift. But although in the hunting-field, on the race-course, or in harness, a horse will generally, from sheer pluck, go till he drops, yet, whenever he encounters physical strength greater than his own, our hero all of a sudden acts like an arrant coward. For instance, in the mail, it apparently matters not to the spirit of the horses whether there be one passenger or six-light bags or heavy ones; on the contrary, the greater the weight, the more eagerly do they strain to force it to follow them. The faster they are allowed to go, the harder do they pull, until, if the reins were to break, they would enjoy the opportunity by running away, not as in the days of Phaeton with the chariot of the sun, but with say a ton and a half, of they know not what, at their heels. And yet, if on the following day the same high-flying, high-spirited, high-mettled horses were to be hooked to a sturdy living oak tree, after two or three ineffectual snatches to move it, no amount of punishment would be sufficient to induce them to go to the end of their traces; in short, to use a well-known expression, they would all "jib." Again, if a horse in harness, however resolutely he may be proceeding, slips upon pavement, and falls heavily on his side, after vainly making three or four violent struggles to rise, he becomes all of a sudden so completely cowed, that not only without any resistance does he allow his harness piecemeal to be unbuckled, the carriage detached, and pushed away far behind him, but, when lying thus perfectly unfettered, it requires kicks, stripes, and a malediction or two, to induce him to make the little effort necessary to rise from his prostrate state. Again, in the hunting-field, a noble, high-couraged horse, a rusher at any description of fence, the very sight of which seems to inflame his ardour, in most gallant style charges a brook, which when he is in the air he sees is too broad to be cleared. On his chest striking against the bank, and while his rider, delighted at feeling that he is not a bit hurt, is luxuriously rolling over and over on the green grass like a rabbit that at full speed has been shot dead, this gallant steed makes two, three, or four desperate efforts to get to him; and yet, simply because the mud at the bottom of the brook catches hold of his hind feet, and the sticky perpendicular clay bank grasps his fore ones, his courage suddenly fails him, and as nothing will then induce him to make another effort, it becomes necessary to send, often several miles, for cart-horses to drag this high-bred animal out by his neck.
