4 INTRODUCTION 



unfair to my readers, not to have drawn especial 

 attention to the best compiled index on horses 

 and equitation. From it they can learn with 

 amazement how much has been written, and 

 read with delight the works of horsey men who 

 have lived in various periods and in all sorts 

 of climates. The only drawback that I find to 

 it is the impossibility of discovering whether a 

 book is worth reading or not. It may have been 

 a standard work or a barefaced plagiarism ; and 

 it is almost impossible to digest the contents of 

 all or even one hundredth of them. 



As an admirer of Huth's labours — and they 

 have been colossal — I must now call attention to 

 the contents of the long list of horsey books 

 which have been so patiently indexed. Some 

 authors have, in my opinion, made sound, and 

 others very unsound, suggestions ; and it hardly 

 concerns us to know whether the people who 

 wrote good ideas had long-winded names, or 

 were Englishmen or not. We approach the 

 subject in a sportsmanlike spirit, holding cosmo- 

 politan views, and believing that whoever lays 

 down rules derived from living and dead literary 

 men and living and dead practical owners of 

 horses, vets, and grooms, &c., is doing beneficial 

 work — soothing pain and preventing needless 

 cruelty, giving interest to horse-lovers, and 

 bringing happiness to the hunters, hacks, race- 

 horses, harness-horses, &c., in their charge. 



Should further particulars interest my reader, 

 I must refer him to Huth's Index of 439 pages, 

 which could doubtless have been swelled to an 



