of Belgravia, was the conquest of Cruiser, the
man-eating stallion. But this was not the
foundation on which his future reputation as
a reformer of our system of horse-training will
rest. It was a case of taming, not training;
and, in taming, we have authentic accounts of
the wonderful power of individual courage and
skill from the time of Alexander and
Bucephalus to the mad parson Harvey, who would
go into the den of the most vicious stallion
alive, and bring him out quiet as a lamb after
a short interview.

Dan Sullivan's lessons to King Pepin, the
Irish racehorse, were quite as effective as
Rarey's lessons to Cruiser, if not more so.
But there are very few King Pepins, Cruisers,
and Phlegons, and such man-eaters are not
one in a thousand in this country. But Rarey's
great merit consists in having rescued colts
from the hands of the ignorant and generally
brutal class, called, appropriately, colt
breakers; for their system breaks the spirit
of a high-bred animal. It reduces the training
of horses, for all purposes, to a rational
system, which it is in the power of every
horseman to practise, and to teach to his
servants; whether they be grooms, ploughboys,
or sailors, turned into Australian or
South African horse-keepers.

For a full and clear account of this new
system, we are indebted to an illustrated;
and enlarged edition of the American pamphlet
from the press of Routledge and Company,
the friends of the railway reader.

Under the old system as practised in
country-places where horses are generally
bred, the colt is confided to a rude semi-
savage, whose tools consist of a heavy snaffle-
bridle, a halter, or cavesson, with a long longeing
rein, a dumb jockey, a pair of sharp spurs,
and a couple of whips—one of the straight-
cutting, and the .other of the four-in-hand
style. The early education of the unfortunate
animal commences by its being fastened up
tightly from head to tail, between a crupper
and a pair of reins, buckled up to the dumb
jockey (which is a pair of upright crosstrees
girthed to a pad on the colt's back), and, in
this sort of pillory of mouth, neck, and tail,
led about from public-house to public-house
for a day or a week, according to the depth of
the owner's pocket. Any resistance on the
poor animal's part, is treated as flat rebellion,
and is suppressed, if possible, by a sharp
application of the long-lashed whip.

The next step for teaching obedience in a
tame, and breaking the spirit of a fiery colt
is longeing; that is, making the animal walk,
trot, and canter in a circle; until the poor
brute becomes so tired that it is ready
to submit to anything—at least that is the
theory. In practice, colts, by being over and
ignorantly longed frequently become sulky
and vicious. Still more frequently they lose
their natural free gait, and acquire a vile,
cramped, one-sided action. After a certain
number of days passed between calling at
public-houses and circling with the longeing
rein under the influence of the four-in-hand
whip, a saddle is placed with very little
ceremony on the colt's back. If he submit, well
and good; if he resist he gets some sharp
cuts of the whip, and perhaps an hour or two
of longeing exercise for his pains: he is
mounted, and if he attempts to throw his
rider he is severely punished with whip,
with spur, and with the ever-recurring
longe. Not unfrequently a colt breaker
or rough rider—two terms which perfectly
express the rude brutality of the process—
with a difficult animal to manage, will
attach a couple of long reins to a cavesson;
have them held by two men, while he,
mounted with reins, whip, and spur, does
his best to subdue the rampant spirit. We
have seen this in the riding-school of a duke.
In the end, after two or three months' labour,
the majority of colts are subdued; some are
lamed in the process, and some of the best
acquire vices, or are afflicted with a degree
of nervousness which unfits them for cavalry,
or harness, and for a variety of other purposes.

Although there are a certain number
of sober colt breakers blessed with the
common sense of humanity and a certain
number have owners among gentlemen and
farmers who apply the tools and methods
above described with patience and discretion,
yet, it is a universally admitted fact, that the
greater number of vicious horses acquire
their vices in the process of breaking according
to this mischievous plan. It is also certain
that until April, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight,
when Rarey began his lectures to bipeds and
lessons to quadrupeds, the most accomplished
horsemen of Europe relied for conquering the
resistance of a violent horse on a rough rider
with whip, spurs, and a severe bit.

The Rarey system of colt-training is founded
on the three following axioms:

1. That a colt may be taught to do anything that a
horse can do, if taught in a proper manner.

2. That a horse is not conscious of his own strength
until he has resisted and conquered man, and that a
colt can be handled in such a manner that he shall
never find out his own strength.

3. That as the resistance of a colt to do what a
trained horse freely does is chiefly caused by fear, if
you allow him to examine the objects of which he is
afraid, by seeing them, smelling them, and feeling
them, you can in an extraordinary short time reconcile
him to all those objects which at first excite his fear
and anger; as, for example, the feel of saddles,
harness, and wheeled carriages, the sight of umbrellas
and flags, loaded waggons, or troops, the sound of
wheels, drums, musketry, and railway-trains.

In order to carry out this theory practically
on a colt which is to be educated, not
broken, the whole treatment must, from first
to last, be consistent. When the colt is to be
for the first time brought up from the pasture
(supposing it has not been handled and