From the earliest ages this noble animal has been the friend and companion of man. Prized for his beauty, loved for his docility, and valued for his strength, he has ever been regarded as the highest in value and importance of all domesticated animals. In the remotest ages, as far back as authentic history discloses anything of the life and pursuits of man, we find that the horse occupied a prominent position in his service. Painters have pictured on their canvas the majesty and grace of the spirited animal. Poets have celebrated his strength and beauty in their verses, and even inspired writers have introduced amongst their most glowing descriptions the horsemen and chariots which formed a chief feature in the pomp and magnificence of those early days.

In the most ancient hieroglyphs we find him present, and always so represented as to show that, even in the remote antiquity from which they date, he had been brought into complete and serviceable subjection. In the oldest Egyptian paintings the horse is seen only in the war chariot, and in the descriptions of the siege of Troy only the charioteer appears, from which it has been supposed that the first horses used by the Greeks were too small to be conveniently ridden. But in the lately-discovered paintings in the palace of Nimrod, at Nineveh, disinterred by Layard, and supposed to be more than three thousand years old, horsemen are exhibited both in the chase and war.

But further back than even those distant times, in the ages where authentic history merges into the shadowy light, amidst which myth and fable mingle with the real, we find this noble animal figuring, but then exalted into a semi-human sphere. The Centaurs, who inhabited the passes of Mts. Pelion and Ossa, and the great plains of Thessaly, in Upper Greece, were probably a race resembling in many respects the Tartars of this age, and are supposed to have been the first who brought the horse into subjection to man. They were fabled as being half horse and half man. They are represented as perfect horses in all respects below and behind the withers and the chest; there, at the insertion of the neck, began a human body, the hip-joints articulating into the shoulders of the lower animal, and the abdomen of the man passing gradually into the chest of the horse. Above this the human form was perfect, with the erect bearing, chest, shoulders, arms, neck and head of a complete man. They were reputed to be possessed of extraordinary mental as well as physical powers, and to be as superior to ordinary men in wisdom and art as they were in fleetness and strength. They were evidently a tribe of horsemen whom the ignorance and superstition of that early period elevated into a superior race, in the supposition that the horse and man were united in one. Everything points to them as being the first who succeeded in breaking and using the horse.

Coming down to the times of authentic history, we find the Parthians to have been amongst the most renowned for their skill in training and using the horse. Their feats of horsemanship in battle showed a complete mastery of the animal, which, in their battles with the Romans, rendered them so efficient as mounted archers.

Frequently, in ancient paintings, the mounted steed is represented without a bridle, and the Numidian cavalry are said to have guided and restrained their horses without it; an assertion by no means improbable, as a Comanche Indian of the present day will frequently jump on the back of a wild and untrained horse, and guide him by the simple expedient of covering with his hand the eye of the animal on the side opposite to that in which he wishes to direct it.

In modern times the horse has been so closely associated with man that he appears in every phase of society, and it is only when his numerous uses are considered that we realize how greatly the human family is his debtor. The knight of the days of chivalry would have been impossible but for the trusty steed which bore him so gallantly in the lists at the tourney, and amidst the deadlier strife of the battle. Before the plow and at the harrow he has multiplied the productions of the earth a hundred-fold beyond what human strength alone could have secured. Laboring before the loaded wagon, he has been a steady drudge for man. Harnessed to the elegant equipage or to the humbler “cab,” or bearing along the dusty highway the stage-coach of the traveler, he has performed a thousand offices indispensable to human comfort and advancement. It is not too much to claim for him that civilization itself would have been shorn of something of its present fair proportions but for the valuable services rendered by this noble animal.

Yet, with all his acknowledged value, the horse has been too frequently the victim of neglect and cruelty; often ill-fed, poorly sheltered, and harshly treated, till, in many cases, the innate nobleness of his nature has been obscured by vicious habits, contracted through the mismanagement or abuse to which he has been subjected, and perpetuated by ignorance and prejudice. Naturally, the horse is usually gentle and confiding; he is quick to perceive, and possesses an excellent memory, which qualities render him capable of being educated easily, and to an extent far greater than is generally supposed. Added to this, he is capable of deep and lasting attachment.

What the horse may have been in his natural state is not known, as none at present exist in that condition. The horses which at the present day are found in a wild state in Northern Asia and America, are known to be the descendants of individuals formerly domesticated. On the prairies of the West, the pampas of South America, and the plains of Tartary, they live in troops, roaming at large, without fixed place of abode, seeking the richest pasturages by day, and resting at night in dry and sheltered situations; these large troops, which have lived independently for many generations, entirely exempt from the influence of man, probably afford a tolerably correct idea of what the primeval animal was. They are generally smaller, yet stronger, than the domesticated animal, with rougher coats, stronger limbs, and larger heads. Even when adult, the wild horse is readily domesticated, and may be broken to any use without great difficulty, thus proving the natural gentleness and docility of his nature. They are captured by the lasso, bitted, mounted, and broken within an hour by the daring and skillful Gauchos.

The Arabians, long renowned for their attachment to the horse, early showed the extent to which intelligent training could develop his finer qualities, and render him the most docile and obedient of animals. Something in that country or its climate is especially suited to the development of the horse, and, although introduced there long after his domestication in other eastern countries, he rapidly attained a degree of excellence which surpassed all others, until the horses of Arabia and the adjacent portions of Asia and Africa became the most celebrated for speed, courage, spirit, intelligence and docility of any of the equine race. Small in size, he has a beautiful, lean, bony head, with a very broad forehead, a tapering muzzle, and large, well-opened nostrils; his mane is very long, thin and silky. It is from the Arabian horse, crossed with the Barb, that the best stock of England and America has sprung. Although much of the superiority of these horses is attributable to peculiarly favorable conditions of the country where they originated, yet many of their excellent qualities may be traced to kindness and intelligent training by which those qualities were first developed, and through which they have been transmitted until they have become characteristics of the race.

The Arabian understands the value of his horse, appreciates the nobility of his nature, and treats him accordingly. They kiss and caress them; they adorn them with jewels, and amulets formed out of sentences of the Koran, as a preservative against evil and accidents. “In short,” says a modern author, “they treat them almost like rational beings, which are ready to sacrifice their lives for their master’s benefit.” In the desert he is the familiar comrade, tentmate and playmate of his master, as docile and intelligent as a dog. Rev. V. Monro relates an anecdote of an Arab, “the net value of whose dress and accoutrements might be calculated at something under seventeen pence half-penny,” who refused all offers made to purchase a beautiful mare on which he rode, declaring that he loved the animal better than his own life. The French author, Dr. St. Pierre, quotes a remarkable instance of the attachment an Arabian feels for his horse: “The whole stock of a poor Arabian of the desert consisted of a most beautiful mare. The French Consul at Said offered to purchase her, with an intention of sending her to his master, Louis XIV. The Arab, pressed by want, hesitated for a long time, but at length consented, on condition of receiving a very considerable sum, which he named. The Consul, not daring, without instructions, to give so high a price, wrote to Versailles for permission to close the bargain on the terms stipulated. Louis XIV gave orders to pay the money. The Consul immediately sent notice to the Arab, who soon after made his appearance mounted on his magnificent courser, and the gold he had demanded was paid down to him. The Arab, covered with a miserable rag, dismounts and looks at the money; then, turning his eyes to the mare, he thus accosts her: ‘To whom am I going to yield thee up? To Europeans, who will tie thee close, who will beat thee, who will render thee miserable. Return with me, my beauty, my darling, my jewel, and rejoice the hearts of my children!’ As he pronounced these words, he sprung upon her back and scampered off towards the desert.”

It is not surprising that such a high appreciation of and fondness for this noble animal, united to an intelligent training, has resulted in the production of a race of horses unrivaled in excellence. But among Europeans and Americans the treatment of the horse has been usually so harsh, and the mode of training so deficient in intelligence, as to greatly lessen his value, even where a brutal ignorance has not brought into activity every vice latent in his nature. Of the numerous faults ascribed to the horse a very small portion are chargeable to his natural disposition, the remainder being the direct result of vicious training, or rather of the absence of training, and the substitution of something which, under that name, first produces and then fosters the faults for which the animal is punished; while often the punishment is ineffectual, because the animal has no conception of why it is made to suffer.

Education is as essential to the horse as it is to man, and in each case it must proceed on the same general principles. Man, if uneducated and untrained would degenerate into barbarism, and the horse, unless brought under subjection to an intelligent will, will remain wild and ungovernable. In each case education is the process by which the higher and better qualities are developed and the lower and evil are restrained. The first grand lesson to be learned by each is that of subjection to authority; the child is taught that by his parent; the horse must learn it from his trainer. But, after that, knowledge is required, and this must be imparted by methods adapted to the nature that is to be cultivated. The object of the practical portion of this book is to show in what that knowledge consists and how it may be communicated to the horse, and so impressed upon his memory that it will never be forgotten. The author has the fullest confidence that the methods of breaking and training the horse, herein taught, will, if early applied, prevent his acquiring any of the faults which, under former systems, have proved so numerous; while the treatment recommended for correcting bad habits, already formed, will prove effectual in even the most stubborn cases, and with the most intractable dispositions. The reader will not be asked to accept any unproved theory, but will be instructed in a system which, although subjected to the severest tests, has never failed to accomplish the desired results. And that it never will fail, the author feels assured, it being firmly based on reason and experience. That it may require patience and self-control on the part of the instructor the author does not deny; but so does the instruction of a child, the breaking of a dog to the gun, or even the training of a vine to its trellis; but the satisfactory results which are certain to be attained will furnish an ample reward.