coaxed from its earliest years) the operation
is to be conducted as quietly as possible, and
an old steady animal is to be employed to
wheedle the young one into the stable where
the first lesson is to be given—that lesson
consists in putting on the halter. To do this,
the trainer must arm himself with a leather
halter and a stock of patience, and spend an
hour or more, if necessary, in slowly, steadily,
gradually gaining the confidence of the animal,
and coaxing him by stealthy approaches,
first to be patted, and then to submit his head
to the halter. Of course, by the help of two
or three strong fellows it is possible to compel
a wild colt to be haltered; but by this sort of
violence you have frightened him, hurt him,
and taught him, as lesson number one, to
look on man as an enemy instead of a friend.
It is the characteristic of all animals of
domesticated races to approach and make
friends with man. A red deer looks hard,
but flies from man; an untrained colt, if the
man continues quite still, seems unable to
resist the temptation to approach and to smell
him.

Having haltered the colt, the next thing
to teach him is to lead—ignorant people pull
at him; but he is the stronger, soon finds that
out, and gets into a habit of hanging back
whenever any one takes hold of the halter or
bridle.

Out of twenty horses brought out for sale
to Tattersall's, there are not two which will
freely follow the man whose business it is to
lead them. Yet, in an hour or so, by merely
taking advantage of the colt's physical
conformation, and always leading him in a small
circle, so that he can't resist, (for his neck
will bend, and he must follow the bending of
his neck), you persuade him that he cannot
resist the pull of the rein, and he may be led
anywhere with a straw. A gentle judicious
application of a gig-whip to his hind quarters
while you lead him with one hand close to
his head, will teach him to run after you as
earnestly as if he were a well-trained setter
at heel.

These lessons, frequently repeated, but not
lasting more than an hour each time, so as
not to fatigue the animal, and accompanied
by a flow of coaxing words, gentle pattings,
rewarding bits of carrot, are to be if possible
administered in a barn, or stable, or riding-
school, with room enough, and not too much
room, but shut out from all distracting sights
and sounds.

We have now arrived at the stage of
education when it is necessary to give a
lesson in docility, and to remove any remaining
fear of man, and of the trappings of
horsemanship. For this purpose the horse
is strapped up, and thrown down, or
rather made to throw himself down, by
arrangements which cannot be properly
explained without the help of the numerous
woodcuts which illustrate the work from
which we obtain some of the materials of
this paper. There is nothing new in throwing
horses down; it is an expedient which
has been resorted to as far back as records
go, for the purpose of performing surgical
operations. It has usually been performed
by fettering the animal's forelegs, and then
pulling them violently from under him by
ropes in the hands of half-a-dozen stout
fellows. Since the Rarey-plan has been
made public, research, almost antiquarian,
has shown that forty or fifty years ago, a
method was devised by which a man could
throw a horse down single-handed; and so,
too, strapping up a horse's leg has been an
old expedient for dressing, shoeing, or mounting
a restive horse. But it was reserved for
Mr. Rarey not only to devise a simple and
effective arrangement of straps for subduing
the most violent and stubborn horses (an
invention of minor importance), but—and this
is of great importance—to discover the
extraordinary effect which this laying down
produced, by at the same time subduing and
conciliating the colt or horse. Doctor Jenner
was not attacked by professional brothers
for his discovery of the virtues of
vaccination more violently than Rarey has been
assailed by certain veterinary surgeons,
for having substituted the laying down
straps and soothing system for the rough-
rider, or the whip, spurs, longeing-rein, and
dumb jockey. And his system is attacked
with the same inconsistent arguments, as
those by which inoculation was supported
against vaccination; for they say, first, that
it is of no value; and, when repeated public
proof extinguishes that absurdity, they cry
loudly that it is not new. At any rate, if
not new, the value of the process has been
preserved as a profound secret; for no trace
is to be found in any of the standard veterinary
or equestrian publications, and no use
has been made of it either in cavalry-barracks
or royal stables, or racing stables. The
owners of valuable blood-stallions have been
obliged to rely on sharp bits, blinding
blinkers, bucket muzzles, and loaded
bludgeons, for keeping their noble savages from
man-eating. Until Rarey appeared, not a
line indicating his system is to be found
printed from the day of Gervase Markham,
to the great modern lights, Nimrod, Cecil,
and Scrutator.

The result of the Rarey plan of strapping
up and laying down a horse is threefold.
First, the colt acquires the conviction that
the man is stronger than himself; secondly,
when down with his two forelegs made fast,
he can be accustomed to necessary discipline
without the power of resistance; and, at the
same time, learns that that discipline will not
in any way hurt him; thirdly (and this
result is as certain as most mysterious and
unaccountable), a  colt, and very often a trained
horse, after being once or twice put down
and "gentled " (a word of Mr. Rarey's
own coinage), seems to acquire a positive