CHAPTER XII 



THE BREAKING OF THE COLT 



Mil. KAREY's mode of breaking — THE ORDINARY ENGLISH METHOD OF BREAKING 

 FOR THE SADDLE — SUPERIORITY OF THE ORDINARY METHOD — BREAKING TO 

 HARNESS. 



The year 1858 will ever be memorable in the annals of the English stable 

 for the success of Mr. Rarey and his partner, Mr. Goodenough, in extract- 

 ing £25,000 from the pockets of English horsemen by the promise of a 

 new method of breaking and training the animal which they all loved so 

 well, but so often found not quite obedient to their wills. The plans by 

 which obedience was to be ensured were kept a profound secret, but to 

 prove Mr. Rarey 's power, the French coaching stallion, Stafiford, the 

 English thoroughbred, Cruiser, and a grey colt in the possession of Mr. 

 Anderson, of Piccadilly, all notoriously vicious, were privately subdued, 

 and afterwards exhibited in public. Subscribers were invited to pay ten 

 guineas each, with the engagement that as soon as five hundred names 

 were put down, 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 suljject. It will be 

 seen hei'eafter 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 



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