HORSETRAINING ILLUSTRATED.

Evening Post, Issue 86, 19 May 1865, Page 3

HORSETRAINING ILLUSTRATED.

Wednesday, May 10, Professor Belew lectured at the Provincial Bazaar, on Horsemanship and Horsetraining, and illustrated his system by reducing to obedience one of the wildest colts that could be procured. It can scarcely be said that any new principle was propounded, as that of the professor is i ltntical with the one that Rarey some few years ago so ably and popularly advocated, iiut there is much advantage to be derived from witnessing the humane expedients adopted for training horses for the purposes for which they are wanted. There is a rough and ready method adopted by the admirable horsemen of the colonies, which is sufficient for those who can sit a buck-jumper until saddle and man are thrown over the horse's head with the girth unbroken and straps buckled — a feat which many a Victorian horse is capable of performing — but every one is not a rough rider, and. it ia o£ importance that horses should be quickly and effectually taught obedience. The school of Professor Belew is one in which humanity and science are combined. Acting upon well known instincts of the animal, the superiority of man is made manifest to it, and submission is enforced by methods the most effectual and the least cruel. An unbroken colt was, in about tventy minutes, reduced to such perfect submission that an umbrella was shaken over its head without exciting fear. The professor mounted its back and directed its course round the enclosed arena without bridle or halter, without even eliciting the semblance of resistance on the part of the animal. Some of the spectators affirmed that the horse was natnrally good tempered and disinclined to vice; but to the initiated there was a little exhibition of the eye that augured to the contrary under different discipline. There can be no question of the complete success of the experiment. Not the least interesting part of the lecture, was that which pointed out the best treatment for different forms of vice. Had the mechanical appliances exhibited been adopted years ago, they would have been the means of saving many valuable lives ; and there was not one present who has been accustomed to horses that did did not see much and learn much calculated to be useful in the training and management of them. The amusing part of the lecture related to the methods adopted by dishonest dealers to profit by the purchase or sale of horses,* and the professor showed unnristakeably that there is scarcely a disease f also symptoms of which cannot be induced, nor a defect which cannot for the moment be hidden. The lecture, in American phraseology, was " a caution " to the unwary. — Otatro Times.