Gentlemen Riders 



accounts of the week's sport in the Shires, he failed to find 

 mention therein of the celebrated horseman who forms the 

 subject of this chapter, whose name for years was a household 

 word in the Midlands as that of one of the hardest and best 

 riders that ever crossed Leicestershire. 



It is, however, only his race riding, and not the hunting- 

 field, which concerns us, and perhaps luckily so, as with such 

 subjects to work upon as Captains Smith, Boyce, and Riddell, 

 not forgetting "Timber" Powell, we should find it difficult to 

 know where to leave off. 



His education over, the subject of our memoir joined the 

 1 6th Lancers, at which period his riding career may be said to 

 have commenced, his first winning ride being on a horse called 

 Young Napier, belonging to a brother officer, at Tipperary 

 in 1855. 



After the race he bought Young Napier, and won another 

 steeplechase on him later on. After this Captain Riddell rode 

 frequently in Ireland, one of his most notable successes there 

 being the Dublin Metropolitan Steeplechase, which he won for 

 Sir Edward Hutchinson on a mare called Chance. 



On returning to England with his regiment, he rode a great 

 deal for Captain Park Yates, Royal Dragoons, for whom he 

 won the Grand Military in 1861 on Rifleman, beating Captain 

 Marshall on Jealousy, who had just previously won the Grand 

 National, and on whom odds of 6 to 4 were laid, 8 to i being 

 on offer against Rifleman. 



Captain Riddell, in fact, when in the Service, won all the 

 events at the Grand Military meeting, and the Veteran Steeple- 

 chase on one of his own soon after he left. 



When quartered with the regiment at Canterbury, Captain 

 Riddell owned a real good mare in Bandana, who won no 

 less than six out of the eight steeplechases she ran in whilst 



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