Gentlemen Riders 



Service, joining the 35th Royal Sussex Regiment, when I sold 

 Prince Ernest, who passed into the possession of the late 

 Captain Machell, and was one of the first horses with which 

 he won a race. Joining the Royal Sussex in India, I got 

 a small stud together, and did a good deal of riding at the 

 various race meetings in the N. W. P., the Punjaub, and 

 Oudh, up to 1866, when I returned home. I may mention 

 that, just before leaving, I won every race at the Mooltan 

 Steeplechase Meeting, except one, in which I was beaten a head, 

 on my own horses. On arriving in Ireland in 1866, I found 

 the boom in steeplechasing just commencing, which continued 

 for the next twelve or fourteen years, during which I think it 

 was at its zenith, both as regards the horses and the men who 

 rode them, the latter, in my opinion, never having been equalled 

 at any period which my experience covers. In 1867, my riding 

 was chiefly at minor meetings, though I was second on Jolly 

 Marine in the Conyngham Cup at Punchestown ; but in the 

 following year, 1868, which was the occasion of his Majesty's 

 (then Prince of Wales) first visit to that meeting, I rode the 

 winners of the Drogheda Stakes and Conyngham Cup, and 

 was third in the Grand Military. 



"In 1870, I left the service, and settled at Hillbrook, 

 Parsonstown, where I always kept a couple of horses in 

 training, and continued to ride in public till 1894, when, after 

 winning the Prince of Wales' Plate at Punchestown on The 

 Countess, I was obliged to give up the silk jacket and go 

 abroad, on account of my health, for a couple of years, having 

 ridden in public for forty consecutive years, during which time 

 I rode winners at all the principal meetings — Punchestown, 

 Fairyhouse, Baldoyle, Cork Park, Galway, etc. — and at almost 

 every country meeting in Ireland ; my successes including, at 

 Punchestown, the Drogheda Stakes (twice), Conyngham Cup, 



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