10 INTRODUCTION. 



mean posturing or circns-riding ! Posturers and circus-riders, 

 are rarely, or never, good riders ! 



One must, liave known horses nnder him, in almost every 

 conceivable position — rearing, plunging, kicking, terrified, 

 frantic, falling and even fallen, most of all perfectly managed, 

 tine-moutlied and high-mettled — and be able to control them all, 

 before he may call himself a horseman. 



Now in America, never has there been any standard book 

 published, pretending to set forward even the commonest rules 

 of stable management, bitting, breaking and mouthing young 

 horses, or even of riding them, when broken. Kor in England 

 has there been any such, since the old days of the manege^ now 

 I regret to say, obsolete — I regret to say it, because although too 

 formal, and savoring too much of ancien regime and j)recision, 

 it has yet much that is most valuable, nay, essential ; unless it 

 be a few late volumes on cavalry tactics, or cross-country riding, 

 and a few works on the stable. 



It is this void which I hope and propose- to fill. The book, 

 which I have now the honor to lay before the public, is almost 

 entirely American in its details, and will, I trust, answer its 

 purpose, as what it is intended to be, a thorough and general 

 compendium of all that which most ought to be known, and 

 which will be most useful to the American horsekeeper. 



In the compass of two volumes it cannot be expected that I 

 should ofi'er, as I do not pretend to oflPer, a complete History of 

 the Turf, or of the Trotting Course ; but I hope it will be found, 

 that I have seized the salient and distinctive points of both, as 

 regards this almost boundless country, and presented them in 

 euch a form as will not only prove entertaining, but useful. 



To make a man a rider or a driver, by any written precepts, 

 is not within the range of possibilities ; much less do I aspire to 

 give to the horse-owner a work on the veterinarian science, 

 which shall in itself suffice. 



