The work to which these few lines are meant to form a preface does not aspire to the dignity of containing anything resembling an exhaustive treatise on each, or any of the numerous minor subjects connected with the principal one of Equitation. It is simply a collection of useful and practical hints on matters that pertain to the horse and his management—no study of things abstruse being brought into requisition, or any complicated theories put forward for guidance. The instructions given are of the plainest and easiest description, and are the result of an experience which has in some instances been rather dearly bought; the experiments described have been duly tested, the recipes tried, the systems explored, and the rules set forth rigidly investigated before being recommended.

The unexpected success which attended the publication of “Ladies on Horseback” induced the Messrs. Ingram, proprietors of the Lady’s Pictorial, to commission me, some little time ago, to write for them a set of articles of a prepared in part from very rough sketches made by my own hand, I think I shall have said enough to form a suitable “preliminary canter” to this volume, and may prepare to go up to the starting-point, and begin my race.

N. P. O’D.