PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



I OFFER this work to the favourable consideration of the public, as an 

 attempt to describe a reasoned-out system of horse-breaking, which I 

 have found, by practical experience, to be easy of execution, rapid in 

 its effects, and requiring the possession of no exceptional strength, 

 activity, pluck, or horsemanship by the operator, who, to become 

 expert in it, will, as a rule, need only practice. It is in accordance 

 with our English and Irish ideas on the subject ; for it aims at teach- 

 ing the horse " manners," and giving him a snaffle-bridle mouth ; so 

 that he will "go up to the bridle," and "bend" himself in thorough 

 obedience to rein and leg. 



As a personal explanation, I may mention that after having spent 

 many years racing and training in India, during which time I prac- 

 tised the ordinary methods of breaking, I returned to England, where 

 I learned the use of the standing martingale and long driving reins, as 

 applied specially to jumpers, from Mr. John Hubert Moore, who was 

 the cleverest "maker" of steeplechasers Ireland ever knew. He, I 

 may remark, obtained these methods, in his youth, from an old Irish 

 breaker, named Fallon, who was born more than a century ago. I 

 had also valuable instruction in " horse taming " from Professor 

 Sample. Having read an account of MjM. Raabe and Lunel's hippo- 

 lasso^ as a means of control for veterinary operations, I conceived, 

 with happy results, the idea of utilising this ingenious contrivance in 



