PREFACE

FAULTY as it is, this work is the first to establish a link between the prehistoric age of "Horses and Horsemen" and the present time. Other books have been simply branches of equine literature.

Old and new ideas have been weighedsteering clear of fads and cranks.

Not only have there been innumerable interviews and much correspondence with the living, but communications with the dead, by means of the well-penned manuscripts they left as monuments of their labours.

Since the first proofs have been corrected the sad intelligence of the deaths of Mr. Hugh Owen and Mr. Garrett Moore have reached the sporting world.

The victories of Chevalier Ginistrelli's " Signorinetta" by "Chaleureux" out of that marvellous mare "Signorina" startled the racing world when the filly won the Derby at 100 to I, which entitled her to rank as an extraordinarily good mare; especially when she followed this up by winning the Oaks. This took place after my book had gone to press.

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Thus readers will see how difficult it is to bring sporting topics in book-form completely up-to-date. So I must ask all interested in this subject to view "Horses, Horsemen, and StableManagement" in a broad light, and to realise that it has been no easy task to connect the earliest times with the year 1908.

It would have been a mistake to have dwelt at tedious length on the past and to have written too little about the present. Nor could I omit the practical side, i.e. stable-management. Yet my chief difficulty lay in explaining, as clearly as I could, matters of importance, not knowing to what extent readers are in touch with the equine world.

Sovereign, president, peer, commoner, merchant, shopkeeper, farmer, and stable-help-for this is a cosmopolitan book-to ALL these the following pages are addressed in a spirit of goodfellowship by THE AUTHOR.