INTRODUCTION, 



My dear Mr. Murray, — 



What do you expect ? I am not competent to discuss the 

 mysteries of a training-farm, nor the political economy of 

 the horse. 



If, now, 3^ou needed a word on the joys of riding on 

 winged horses, or the experience of long journeys over 

 prairies and through Western forests on horseback, I could 

 supply such material. I also could give you a chapter on 

 the reverse side of the art of selecting and buying horses, 

 so that one should be able, five times out of six, to be 

 cheated, and pay a large price for an unsound horse. I 

 could teach one how to buy dear, and sell cheap. But 

 these are things aside, — the mere chaff and wastage of the 

 subject. 



I really hope that you have made a standard book : first, 

 because you are a clergyman, and it behooves all clergymen 

 to do well whatever they do at all ; and, second, because 

 many men think horse-culture a theme unbecoming a moral 

 teacher. Not long ago, many people thought that good folks 

 ought not to own good horses ; that a fast horse was a sign of 

 a fast man ; and that only publicans and sinners had a right 



