REMINISCENCES OF SONEPORE. 



with an escort has been all the notice vouchsafed. Nor have 

 others been slow to take up the cue. Volunteering has been 

 regarded by a section of the community as the outcome of fri- 

 volity, a conspiracy against honest work, a defrauding of 

 employers, the antics of demoniacs rushing down the steep 

 in short it has been classed under sport. That the Behar 

 planter's only political standing should not be cut away, and 

 that, under happier auspices, the Regiment should be renewing 

 its strength, is due to those who have stuck to it through 

 thick and thin at the cost of inconvenience, irksomeness and 

 temper. But to return to our subject. 



In the opinion "of the older professionals Mr. W. B. Hud- 

 son (Paddy) and Jimmy, who has always raced and ridden as 

 Mr. John, were the first gentlemen riders in India. It was 

 really a fine sight to see the former finishing. The horse was 

 helped and compelled to make his effort until the last ounce 

 was out of him at the post. In this Paddy was facile princeps. 

 The points of Mr. John's riding were judgment, knowledge of 

 pace, pluck, presence of mind and dogged determination. His 

 perception of pace was a gift perfected by any amount of prac- 

 tice in riding races and gallops. At every period of a race he 

 knew intuitively the pace in respect to timing and what his 

 mount could accomplish. The consequence was that his 

 management was rarely at fault. The horse was ridden 

 exactly as best suited his qualities relatively to those of the 

 other horses. And at the right moment he was called upon 

 to use up the reserve power which had been carefully 

 proportioned to the requirements of the occasion. With- 

 out pluck race-riding is a shuffling business. Mr. John's 

 has often stood him in good stead and landed him a win- 

 ner when a man with less nerve would have been hopelessly 

 beaten. At Sonepore that big, powerful brute Boura Bill, 

 coarse but not currish, who would jog every step of the 

 way if you rode him from Lall Serryah to Calcutta, and whom 



