est youth, and had frequently to break in horses five or six years
old, that had run wild until that mature undocile age.

At first he employed the old English rough-rider method, and in the
course of his adventures broke almost every bone in his body, for his
pluck was greater than his science. But he was not satisfied with
following old routine; he inquired from the wandering horsemen and
circus trainers into their methods (it may be that he was at one time
attached to a circus himself), and read every book he could lay his
hands on. By inquiry and by study--as he says in one of his
advertisements--"he thought out" the plan and the principles of his
present system.

The methods he uses for placing a colt or horse completely in his power
are not absolutely new, although it is possible that he has re-invented
and has certainly much improved them. The Russian (_i. e._ Courland)
Circus Riders have long known how, single-handed, to make a horse lie
down by fastening up one fore-leg, and then with a rope suddenly pulling
the other leg from under him. The trick was practised in England more
than forty years ago, and forgotten. That no importance was attached to
this method of throwing a horse is proved by the fact, that in the works
on horsemanship, published during the last twenty years, no reference is
made to it. When Mr. Starkey, of Wiltshire, a breeder and runner of
race-horses,[4-*] saw Mr. Rarey operate for the first time, he said,
"Why I knew how to throw a horse in that way years ago, but I did not
know the use of it, and was always in too great a hurry!" Lord Berners
made nearly the same remark to me. Nimrod, Cecil, Harry Hieover,
Scrutator--do not appear to have ever heard of it. The best modern
authority on such subjects (British Rural Sports), describes a number of
difficulties in breaking colts which altogether disappear under the
Rarey system--especially the difficulty of shoeing.

Captain Nolan, who was killed at Balaklava, served in an Hungarian
regiment, in the Austrian service, afterwards in our own service in
India, and visited Russia, France, Denmark, and South Germany, to
collect materials for his work on the "History of Cavalry and on the
Training of Horses," although he set out with the golden rule laid down
by the great Greek horseman, Xenophon, more than a thousand years
ago--"HORSES ARE TAUGHT, NOT BY HARSHNESS, BUT BY GENTLENESS," only
refers incidentally to a plan for throwing a horse down, in