During these business years in Batavia my attachment for that noble animal, the horse, gradually increased, and learning that a horse trainer by the name of Rarey, intended visiting the town, I was one of the first to seek for and obtain what knowledge I could from him; but finding his system to be not at all practical, I applied myself to the investigation of the subject, and began experimenting with a view to the discovery of a better, simpler and more certain system.
Some years later it was rumored that a gentleman named R. P. Hamilton, who was self-announced as “the great renowned horse trainer,” would give instruction on the subject. He soon made his appearance, and, with others, I attended his lectures. Mr. Hamilton advanced some valuable ideas which I gladly adopted and added to my former knowledge, and when I had grasped all that was valuable in his instructions, and united it to the results of my own experiments, I felt assured that, ere long, I should reach the height of my ambition and develop a system of educating the horse far in advance of anything then known, and by which my name would be handed down to coming generations as one who, more than any other, had befriended that noble but greatly abused animal. Often in my retired moments my thoughts would go forward to the time when I should be able to present my perfected system to the public, and as I looked down the vista of time to the period when I should announce my system, my mind pictured to itself the success I since have realized. I was fully conscious of its value to the world, and thousands have since then freely acknowledged the practicability and excellence of my system of educating the horse.
In the autumn of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven I felt myself sufficiently master of my new and unequaled system to commit myself unreservedly to its public advocacy: so, after selling out my stock in trade, I made my preparations to travel for the purpose of bringing it before the world. Previous to leaving Batavia I had purchased from a perambulating horse dealer my favorite horse, “Tom Thumb,” then partly trained.
Feeling now tolerably well equipped, I came before the public with my new and perfect system, confident that it needed only to be known to be welcomed with pleasure by every intelligent friend of the horse. In the month of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, I made my debut at the town of Geneva, erecting, at considerable cost, an academy for the exhibition of my system of training. My success was immediate; friends and well-wishers clustered about me; the hand of encouragement was extended on every side, and in a little while my class in that place numbered seventy-five members. The reader can scarcely conceive the feelings of gratification that were excited in my breast by such prompt and flattering success. It confirmed my own judgment of the superiority of my system, and inspired a full confidence in its success.
After leaving Geneva, I visited the pleasant town of Waterloo, where I built another academy and formed a class of about eighty members, whose hearty appreciation of the ideas embodied in my system of training afforded me great pleasure.
Leaving that place, I next proceeded to the beautiful village of Penn Yan, where also I built an academy and met with brilliant success, my class numbering over ninety members.
Such gratifying success, and at so early a period, was very encouraging to me. Both myself and my system were new to the public, and, coming before them almost unheralded and without the prestige of great names to give it support, its progress and the general approval it met, could be attributed only to its own merits, which were everywhere conceded.
The next point visited by me was the beautiful and highly picturesque village called Watkins, so well and widely known to pleasure-seekers as an attractive summer resort; its famous “Glen” having an almost national reputation for romantic beauty. Here I formed an interesting class of about sixty persons, many of whom gave unmistakable evidences of confidence in the superiority of my rapidly spreading system for rightly educating the horse.
Cheered by my continued success, I pursued my journey to the city of Ithaca, where I built an academy much larger than any I had previously erected. Here I remained about a week, and had the pleasure of forming a class of one hundred persons.