V1U PREFACE. 



picked up some knowledge of the use and treat- 

 ment of the animal in question* 



Born and bred, I may say, in constant famil- 

 iarity with a racing - stable, and having been 

 always devotedly attached to horses, the wrongs 

 of those noble animals have been prominently 

 before my eyes, and I have felt an anxious desire 

 to see justice done to them, which, I am sorry 

 to say, according to my observation, is but too 

 seldom the case ; indeed, I have often marvelled 

 at the tractability of those powerful creatures 

 under the most perverted treatment by their 

 riders and drivers. 



* It may be well to let my readers know how I became ex- 

 perienced on the road. In the days when coaching was in its 

 perfection (and when many country gentlemen indulged in their 

 fancy for the use of the "ribbons"), I became, during a long 

 interval from service, deeply and actively concerned in a 

 coaching establishment of the first order; and those who, some 

 years since, travelling between Dublin and Killarney vi-i 

 Limerick (a distance of about 185 miles), may have happened 

 to hear coachmen and helpers talking of the w Captain," will 

 recognise in the writer the individual thus referred to, who was 

 also in partnership with the famous Bianconi in the staging on 

 the Killarney line. Several years spent in such a school will 

 probably be considered a good apprenticeship to the study of 

 one branch of the subject herein treated upon — viz., the man- 

 agement of horses on the road. 



