Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

John Solomon Rarey was a horseman in the 1800's and became famous for being able to tame any horse.  He even broke a zebra to ride in 4 hours!  In dictionaries of the time the verb "rarefy" appeared, meaning "to win
by love, to mollify with oil of kindness, to reclaim a badly broken
horse, to tame a horse by kindness."  

For difficult cases, he would lay the horse down.  Here is a website by a great great grandson of JSRarey's uncle, it includes several chapters from Rarey's book and describes how to lay down a horse and even recalls a mare who didn't like the farrier working on her hind feet and how they worked with her.  I am impressed that he constantly reminds the reader not to be angry while working with the horse.

http://www.rarey.com/sites/jsrarey/index.html

Rosalie