Gentlemen Riders 



Mr. L. R. THOMAS 



(''Mr. Trewent") 



In the early seventies of the past century there was no better- 

 known or more popular amateur horseman, either in the Princi- 

 pality or out of it, than the gentleman familiarly known to his 

 many friends as " Bobby " Thomas, and to the racing world as 

 " Mr. Trewent." 



Born in 1845, he had the misfortune, when only five years 

 old, to lose his father, and that it was the wish of the latter 

 that his son should ultimately attain to proficiency in the 

 saddle is plain, from the fact that the first recollection of 

 himself the subject of this chapter can recall to memory is 

 being taken out riding on an old white pony. 



Having escorted him to the post, so to speak, we will now 

 leave Mr. Trewent to finish his race on his own account. 



" After the usual course of preparatory schools I was sent 

 to Harrow, where I had the honour of being swished by both 

 Drs. Vaughan and Butler ; the latter, so far as I remember, 

 being quite twenty-one pounds in front of his predecessor at 

 that recreation. 



"After leaving Harrow, I went to cram for the Army, and 

 passed in direct in May, 1864, and, being gazetted in November, 

 joined the 41st Regiment in Dublin, where I was initiated into 

 the mysteries of the goosestep in the Barrack Square of Rich- 

 mond Barracks. When the Regiment sailed for India, the 

 following year, I was sent to the depot at Colchester. At that 

 time there were a great number of youngsters in the Battalion, 

 and a wilder lot I have seldom met. I could fill a book with 

 stories of the deeds that were done there. Colchester was 



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