Gentlemen Riders 



find him abandoning a calling for which he was by nature 

 eminently unfitted in favour of steeplechase riding, in which 

 accomplishment he had already achieved some success. That 

 he had not mistaken his vocation this time was quickly made 

 evident, and not to have heard of Fog Rowlands and Medora, 

 that favourite mare with which his name will always be 

 coupled, on whose back he won, amongst other events, the 

 Grand Steeplechase at Baden-Baden, would indeed have been 

 considered a display of ignorance. 



Not content with his success as a steeplechase rider, 

 Mr. Rowlands after a while turned his attention to super- 

 intending the training of horses belonging to his friends, first 

 of all at Cheltenham, and afterwards at Pitt Place, Epsom. 

 The Duke of Hamilton, Lord Queensberry, the present Lord 

 Dunraven, Sir John Astley, Sir Charles Nugent, Lord Marcus 

 Beresford, and Mr. Reginald Herbert, all having horses under 

 his charge; whilst the King, when Prince of Wales, in 1875, 

 sent his Arab, Alep, to him to be trained.* 



Two of his greatest successes were the Cheltenham Grand 

 Hunt of 1866, which he won for his life-long friend Mr. Reginald 

 Herbert with Columbia, a mare who had previously run third 

 for the Cambridgeshire, and who, starting at an outside price 

 and ridden by Reeves, beat a large field, which included such 

 well-known performers as L'Africain and Cortolvin ; and the 

 Croydon Hurdle Race for Sir John Astley with Scamp. This 

 last victory was especially gratifying to the master of Pitt Place, 

 for just previously Lord Dupplin, and one or two more of the 

 plunging school, who trained with him, suddenly left him, 

 owing to some trifling disagreement, taking not only their 

 horses with them, but the stable jockey, John Jones, father of 



* He was also Master of the Horse to Lord Stamford when the latter trained with 

 Joseph Dawson, in the Diophantus era, 



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