From the time of Alexander the Great down to the Northumberland Horse-Breaker, there have been instances of courageous men who have been able to do extraordinary things with horses. But they may be divided into two classes, neither of which have been able to originate or impart a system for the use of ordinary horsemen.
The one class relied and relies on personal influence over lower animals. They terrify, subdue, or conciliate by eye, voice, and touch, just as some wicked women, not endowed with any extraordinary external charms, bewitch and betray the wisest men.
The other class rely on the infliction of acute pain, or, stupefaction by drugs, or other similar expedients for acquiring a temporary ascendancy.
In a work printed in 1664, quoted by Nolan, we have a melancholy account of the fate of an ingenious horse-tamer. “A Neapolitan, called Pietro, had a little horse, named Mauroço, doubtless a Barb or Arab, which he had taught to perform many tricks. He would, at a sign from his master, lie down, kneel, and make as many courvettes (springs on his hind-legs forward, like rearing), as his master told him. He jumped over a stick, and through hoops, carried a glove to the person Pietro pointed out, and performed a thousand pretty antics. He travelled through the greater part of the Continent, but unfortunately passing through Arles, the people in that ‘age of faith,’ took him for a sorcerer, and burned him and poor Mauroço in the market-place.” It was probably from this incident that Victor Hugo took the catastrophe of La Esmeralda and her goat.
Dan Sullivan, who flourished about fifty years ago, was the greatest horse-tamer of whom there is any record in modern times. His triumph commenced by his purchasing for an old song a dragoon’s horse at Mallow, who was so savage “that he was obliged to be fed through a hole in the wall.” After one of Sullivan’s lessons the trooper drew a car quietly through Mallow, and remained a very proverb of gentleness for years after. In fact, with mule or horse, one half-hour’s lesson from Sullivan was enough; but they relapsed in other hands. Sullivan’s own account of the secret was, that he originally acquired it from a wearied soldier who had not money to pay for a pint of porter he had drunk. The landlord was retaining part of his kit as a pledge, when Sullivan, who sat in the bar, vowed he would never see a hungry man want, and gave the soldier so good a luncheon, that, in his gratitude, he drew him aside at parting, and revealed what he believed to be an Indian charm.
Sullivan never took any pupils, and, as far as I can learn, never attempted to train colts by his method, although that is a more profitable and useful branch of business than training vicious horses. It is stated in an article in “Household Words” on Horse-Tamers, that he was so jealous of his gift that even the priest of Ballyclough could not wring it from him at the confessional. His son used to boast how his reverence met his sire as they both rode towards Mallow, and charged him with being a confederate of the wicked one, and how the “whisperer” laid the priest’s horse under a spell, and forthwith led him a weary chase among the cross roads, till he promised in despair to let Sullivan alone for ever. Sullivan left three sons: one only practised his art, with imperfect success till his death; neither of the others pretended to any knowledge of it. One of them is to this day a horse-breaker at Mallow.
The reputation of Mr. Rarey brought to light a number of provincial horse-tamers, and, amongst others, a grandson of Sullivan has opened a list under the auspices of the Marquis of Waterford, for teaching his grandfather’s art of horse-taming. It is impossible not to ask, why, if the art is of any value, it has not been taught long ago?
In Ireland as in England, the accepted modes of taming a determined colt, or vicious horse, are either by a resolute rider with whip and spur, and violent longeings, or by starving, physic, and sleepless nights. It was by these means combined that the well-known horseman, Bartley the bootmaker, twenty years ago, tamed a splendid thorough-bred horse, that had defied all the efforts of all the rough-riders of the Household Cavalry regiments.
Bleeding a vicious horse has been recommended in German books on equitation. In the family Robinson Crusoe, paterfamilias conquers the quagga by biting its ear, and every farrier knows how to apply a twitch to a horse’s ear or nose to secure his quietness under an operation. A Mr. King, some years since, exhibited a learned horse, which he said he subdued by pinching a nerve of its mouth, called “the nerve of susceptibility.”
The writer in the “Household Words” article, to which I have already referred, tells how “a coachman in Kent, who had been quite mastered by horses, called in the assistance of a professed whisperer. After his ghostly course the horses had the worst of it for two months, when their ill-humour returned, and the coachman himself immediately darkened his stable, and held what he termed a little conversation with them, which kept them placid till two more months had passed. He did not seem altogether to approve of the system, and plainly confessed that it was cruel.” Putting shot in the ear is an old stupid and fatal trick of ignorant carters to cure a gibbing horse—it cures and kills him too.