80 Among Men and Horses. 



seizing a table, sideboard, or even a heavy chair, dashing it 

 on the ground, and belabouring his opponents with its 

 larger fragments. He taught his sons and stable lads to ride 

 over the biggest country, by, as he used to boast, making 

 them more afraid of him than of falling off. His favourite 

 commentary on broken limbs and dislocated necks was : 

 * They that take by the sword, shall perish with the sword.' 

 He was the teacher of many great horsemen. Barring being 

 a bit short in the temper, he was a fine trainer, and the best 

 breaker in Ireland, which was a fact that I had treasured up 

 in my mind ; for breaking was the subject connected with 

 horses about which I was most ignorant, and on which I 

 longed most for information. I, therefore, went to Jevington, 

 determined to leave it wiser than I came. Mr Moore, like 

 many other enthusiasts, invested his methods with a good 

 deal of mystery, which had become more habitual to 

 him than intentional. His system chiefly consisted of the 

 use, on foot, of the long reins (see Illustrated Horse- 

 Breaking], which he had been taught to handle, when a 

 boy, by an old Irish breaker called Fallen. He liked, 

 when breaking, to fix the position of a horse's head by 

 means of a bearing-rein and standing martingale buckled 

 on to the rings of the snaffle. He maintained, and very 

 justly, that the great point in making a ' reluctant ' horse 

 jump, was to bring him up to the spot from which he ought 

 to take off; that the next thing was to make him more 

 anxious to get to the other side than to remain where he 

 was ; and that both these operations could be best done by 

 the use of the long reins. Mr John Hubert Moore is a man 

 impossible to 'pump,' and was far from communicative on 

 the subject about which I was most interested. Up to that 

 time, I knew no other way of breaking in horses than by 

 riding them with patience and good hands. These excellent 

 agents always took, in my case, a comparatively long time 

 to effect their purpose, and often failed for instance, with 

 hard pullers and old refusers. Of course I knew Rarey's 



