Black Beauty: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

As the narrator grows, he becomes a handsome young horse. He’s black, with a white foot and a white star. His master won’t sell him until he’s four, as he believes that just as boys shouldn’t work like men, colts shouldn’t work like horses until they’re adults. When the narrator turns four, Squire Gordon comes to examine him and says that once the narrator has been “broken in,” he’ll purchase him. The master decides to break the narrator in himself. They begin the next day.

Breaking in, the narrator explains, is the process of teaching a horse to wear a saddle and bridle and carry people on their backs. Horses also learn to wear a harness and draw a cart or chaise behind them. They learn to never startle, kick, or bite—or indeed, “have any will of his own.” Even if a horse is tired or hungry, he must obey his rider’s bidding. The narrator’s breaking in begins with being fitted for a bit and bridle. The bit is terrible—hard steel that goes in one’s mouth, over the tongue and held tight by straps over the head. But since the narrator knows Duchess always wears one, and since the master offers the narrator tasty oats, he gets used to it. The saddle comes next, and soon the master starts riding the narrator around.

It’s extremely unpleasant to be fitted with iron shoes. It doesn’t hurt, so the narrator stands quietly as the shoes are nailed in—but his feet feel heavy afterward. The master breaks the narrator to the harness next, which means having to learn to wear blinkers. Blinkers make it so horses can only see forward. The worst part of the driving training, though, is the crupper—having his tail poked through a strap that attaches to a small saddle makes the narrator want to kick. Soon, though, the narrator can perform work as well as Duchess. The most advantageous part of the narrator’s training, in retrospect, is that he spends a few weeks in a meadow with cows next to a railway. The train is terrifying at first—but soon, the narrator copies the cows and ignores it.

In the narrator’s opinion, what he experienced is the best way to break in a young horse. The master often takes the narrator and Duchess out in the double harness so she can teach him how to drive well. On these drives, Duchess shares that the narrator will be better treated the better he behaves—but she also warns him that not all men are created equal. Some men are kind, while others are cruel. There are other men who are ignorant, vain, and careless. It’s these men who spoil horses, just because they have no sense. Hopefully the narrator will end up in good hands, but horses have no control over where they end up. Still, the narrator should always do his best.