INTRODUCTION. 



ONE of the first questions naturally asked by the would- 

 be purchaser and reader of this book will be: "Who 

 is Dimon, and what does he know about horses? Is he a prac- 

 tical horseman, or a mere theorist like so many others, who, in 

 their eagerness to teach, have so long attempted to teach that 

 of which they knew so little ? " 



This country, for years past, has been literally flooded with 

 " horse literature," some of which has been of a character that 

 will require years of careful teaching to unteach what it has 

 taught. 



"Well, who is Dimon, the author of this book?" It is 

 John Dimon, born on Mount Hope Farm, Bristol, R. I., near 

 the spot where that great Indian warrior, the chief of the Nar- 

 ragansetts, — King Philip, — was captured. Born in 1828; his 

 ancestors were natural horsemen, one of whom was the founder 

 of a breed of horses in this country, known as the Narragan- 

 sett Pacer. This ancestor was an Englishman, and belonged 

 to one of the oldest horse-breeding and horse-loving families of 

 England at the time of the improvement of the English horse 

 by the introduction of the Arabian and Barb blood in the days 

 of the reign of Queen Anne. 



" Well, is John Dimon, the author of this book, capable of 

 teaching the world as regards the horse?" From his earliest 

 recollection the author was an ardent admirer of live stock in 

 general, and the horse in particular. Memory recalls the time 

 when but five years old his favorite child's playthings were 

 feathers of fowls and birds, which he, in his childish imagina- 

 tion, designated as horses and cattle of different classes, accord- 

 ing to their shape, etc. For picture books, those containing 



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