Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Vintage Horse Whispering



Mr. Rarey and Cruiser from Harper's Weekly January 1861

AN EVENING WITH RAREY, published in Harper's Weekly February 1861. Could this have been one of the first "clinic's."

HORSE-BREAKING APPLIANCES, published in Cassell's Book Of The Horse 1875. The engraving above is from my personal collection of lithographs/engravings and it has always intrigued me as the "trip rig" pictured in the engraving is called a Rarey. I wonder if it was invented, used, and was named after the gentleman in the top 2nd and 3rd engraving's. He appeared to be pretty big stuff in 1961 and this illustration above was printed 14 years later.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Remember the 'Beery School of Horsmanship' back in the 60's, early 70's. They used to advertise their course in the back of Popular Mechanics - featuring the 'patented Beery pressure bridle'
I bet that's where a lot of the John Lyons, Roberts and Parelli types got their idea of 'secret training methods'.
Dang, as a kid I wanted to order that set of booklets, but my parents refused to come up with the hundred bucks. I've seen them on Ebay. I wonder if people are buying them as a curiosity or for the magical secrets they contain.

Ian

Anonymous said...

You may want to acquire a copy of Nancy Bowker's book "John Rarey: Horse Tamer," issued in 1999. If you do a title search in Amazon for J. S. Rarey you'll also find some reprints of his books on training.

There's also the probability that some of these are available at Google Books, free. A simple Google search also brings up many hits.

Rarey had a brief connection to the circus business, being with S. O. Wheeler's outfit in 1865. Refer to: http://www.circushistory.org/Thayer/Thayer3m.htm