Bibliothèque mondiale du cheval

« The Grooms’ Oracle was an epithet bestowed, about twenty years ago, in derision, upon one of the best books that had hitherto appeared, in this or any other country, on the Veterinary Art. The best, because the easiest to be comprehended by the generality of persons engaged in that pursuit; and, therefore, likely to become more extensively useful than any of its cotemporaries, not- withstanding its extra-learned detractor meant thereby to abash its author, since he discovered that his attempts to smother both author and book in the bud had signally failed. The same particle of information was alluded to, in the Preface to The Veterinary Surgeon , published eighteen months ago, and is now again adduced principally as an apology for the present title, as well as to cast a triumphant rebuke in the teeth of those who would smug the curative art within a circumscribed space. What they have done in the like spirit, regarding the book just cited, as it was equally unjust, so has it proved quite as unavailing with the public: inapplicable criticisms, that are founded on misrepresentations, grounded on garbled quotations, can do no service to the falsifying parties, only in the same manner as the rod which truants at school are compelled to gather for their own backs.
Yet the bare appearance of assuming oracular wisdom would have been abandoned after the first impulse, as inconsistent with the characters who support the dialogue, and quite at variance with the progress of common-sense knowledge, that is derived from patient observation, but for the cheering approbation of some half a score prying friends, who had perused the manuscript at the time of the first July Meeting, last year, and would hear of no other title than " an oracle," which should dictate to the whole groom genus who had been, from time immemorial, " every man his own oracle." No matter whether pad -groom or training-groom, my lady’s groom or hunting-stud groom, each was formerly the Sir-Positive of his own circle, and each a stickler for his particular opinions as to the practical management of his horses, though these varied from each other as the poles asunder; whilst not one among them condescended to give reasons for his opinions or practice, were it in bis power. They could not, of course, be all in the right, if even one among them were so at the period in question; therefore might the author first spoken of ( James White ) be justified in his frequent rebukes of the grooms of that day ; who, in return, decried him as "no friend to grooms;" and they threw aside his book, or scouted his tuition, until the new lights, which the last thirty years has. spread abroad so wonderfully, began to shine upon the stable also. They had the grace, notwithstanding those rebukes, numerous as they were, to benefit by them; or they felt sufficiently indignant to rise superior to future castigation from forthcoming Veterinarians; so that we are enabled to derive great pleasure from acknowledging, that the present race of grooms, of every gradation, have rescued their character (collectively) from a repetition of the like attack. At this day, THEY READ, and that is sufficient guarantee that THEY STUDY : may they digest and practise the intellectual treat to which we know so many are invited by their employers.
Grooms of to-day, then, are not the grooms of thirty to twenty years ago ! They possess as much intellect as other persons of the same standing in a society, it is presumed whence we are emboldened to ask, without fear of giving offence to a large class of meritorious persons, how it comes to pass that so many horses die under their hands whilst training for the course or the chase ? For, the solution of this question is the foundation of all the inquiries set a foot, and resolved in the present volume. This also constitutes our apology, if any be necessary, and is the reason for printing another volume on Horsemanship, so soon after having given to the world a somewhat elaborate treatise on the physiology and pathology of the Horse which might seem to have exhausted the subject of his ailments. But, there are other and more remote causes of disease than the immediate and recent ones therein described, which are brought on by the neglect or the inadvertence that consti- tutes mismanagement of man ; whilst he who thinks he can never do enough, in anxious mood, will for ever be doing something, until he commits the mistake of overmanagement. […] » Présentation de l’éditeur (1829)