MR. RAREY’S MODE OF BREAKING. 165 
were put duwn, the American would teach them in classes, each subscriber 
binding himself, under a heavy penalty, to keep the secret. The result 
was that eleven hundred ladies and gentlemen paid their money, and kept 
their promise so well that until the appearance of a small shilling volume, 
published by Messrs. Routledge and Co., which detailed the whole process, 
in the very words given to the American public some years before by Mr. 
Rarey, no one but the subscribers had any certain knowledge of the secret, 
although it subsequently appeared that it had oozed out, and had been 
propounded in several directions as a rival scheme of much older date. 
However, it is not now my intention to attempt the discovery of the 
inventor of the system generally known as Rarey’s, my sole object being 
to ascertain its real worth in breaking young stock, and in remedying or 
curing the vices to which older horses are occasionally subject. It will be 
seen hereafter that though I think the plan of great service in some cases, 
I doubt its utility as an aid to the breaker; but, having cost the country 
far more than 25,000/., and having received the approval of hundreds of 
experienced horsemen, it would ill become me to pass the subject over 
without giving reasons for the conclusions to which I have arrived. I 
was not one of the original subscribers, but I have seen Mr. Rarey exhibit 
his extraordinary powers over the horse more than a dozen times, so that 
I am in a position to form an opinion upon the whole process as compared. 
with our ordinary English methods, with which I have also long been 
practically acquainted. 
IN HIS PUBLIC DEMONSTRATIONS Mr. Rarey always commenced by some 
introductory remarks on the natural history of the horse, in which there 
was nothing to impress the auditor with any great respect for his powers. 
At the end of this act, which was evidently intended to kill time, we were 
put in possession of the three fundamental principles of the new theory of 
the proper management of the horse, namely :— 
First, ‘‘ That he is so constituted by nature that he will not offer resist- 
ance to any demand made of him which he fully comprehends, if made in 
a way consistent with the laws of his nature.” 
Secondly, “That he has no consciousness of his strength beyond his 
experience, and can be handled according to our will without force.” 
Thirdly, “That we can, in compliance with the laws of his nature, by 
which he examines all things new to him, take any object, however 
frightful, around, over, or on him, that does not inflict pain, without 
causing him to fear.” 
No one will, I believe, dispute the first two of these principles, which 
have certainly nothing very novel in them. The third, when promulgated, 
was more opposed to our experience, and a demonstration of its truth was 
naturally enough required before it was accepted. To comply with this 
demand horse after horse was submitted to an exhausting and painful 
proof, which I shall presently describe, and then certainly anything which 
did not inflict pain was borne without apparently producing fear. This, 
therefore, was proving the letter of the third principle ; but was the spirit 
of it established? The words just quoted, if they mean anything, signify 
that it is only necessary to allow a horse to examine the drum and he will 
show no fear of it. But is this the real fact? I trow not. Before a high- 
couraged horse will allow a drum to be beaten on his back he must either 
submit to a long course of training under the old system, or he must go 
through the royal road of Mr. Rarey, of which nothing whatever is said 
in the three principles alluded to. Take an ordinary hunter after he is 
exhausted by a long run, and he will bear the noise of a drum, or any 
