Fillis, James (From Richard Flint)

Fillis, James, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. James Fillis (#1 of 5 in series) The English-born James Fillis (1834-1913), shown above in an illustration from his book that John Herriott mentioned owning, trained under François Caron (a student of François Baucher, discussed later) and spent much of his life in Paris where he was a close friend of, and also learned from, Victor Franconi of the great Italian/French circus dynasty. From 1873 to 1886 Fillis performed at the Cirque d'Ete but afterwards confined himself to only training 2 and 3-year-olds for the haute école. However, he later appeared at Ciniselli's circus in St. Petersburg and in 1898 was appointed riding master for the cavalry school there, retiring in 1910. "Breaking and Riding" was first published in Paris in 1890, translated into German for an 1894 Berlin printing and Spanish for a 1901 Madrid edition. It was finally translated into English by a veterinarian, M.H. Hayes, at the behest of the author in 1902 and published simultaneously in London and New York. A second English edition came out in 1911, a fifth in 1939, and an abridgement in 1946. At the time of its initial 1890 appearance, when Fillis was 56, he claimed to have trained 35 school horses and broke, he said, "hundreds of hacks." Dick Flint Baltimore