CHAPTER II 



SECOND TRIP TO RUSSIA 



Hunters Quiet toRide Horses on board Ship Slings ADeal St. Petersburg 

 Polo The Hermitage An Indian Raja Ciniselli's Circus High School 

 Riding Baucher James Fillis General Avscharof Colonel Ismailof 

 General Derfelden A Trip to the Interior American Trainers Doubrovka. 



I RETURNED from Russia early in September, and was 

 fully occupied during my short stay at home in selecting 

 four horses for officers of the Chevaliers Gardes and one for the 

 Grand Duke Paul, who is an uncle of the Tzar. The large 

 number of requirements which these horses had to fulfil made 

 the task of getting them difficult. First of all, they had to be 

 Irish mares. My horsey readers will know that mares of 

 the charger or hunter class are scarce in England, a fact 

 which a perusal of the advertisements of Tattersall, or 

 Warner, Sheppard and Wade will amply demonstrate. 

 Foreigners like Something to breed from, especially if it 

 comes from Ireland. The mares had to be big, good- 

 looking, well-bred, showy, sound, young, and dead quiet ; 

 not a trace of light - heartedness being excusable in the 

 eyes of Sorel and his employers. W 7 e all know that 

 a staid demeanour, without a whisk of the tail or a cock 

 of the ears, is a rare attribute in man, woman, or beast 

 which is young, healthy and handsome. The honourable scars 

 of warfare inflicted on almost every seasoned hunter by 

 timber, stone walls and stiff hedges, are regarded on the 

 other side of the Channel as disqualifying disfigurements. I 



