Gentlemen Riders 



Mr. J. M. RICHARDSON 



Mr. John Maunsell Richardson, known to his numerous 

 friends as the " Cat," and to the entire sporting world as one of 

 the most accomplished gentleman riders of his or any other 

 time, is the second son of the late Mr. William Richardson, of 

 Limber Magna, in the county of Lincoln, where the family have 

 resided for centuries, and first saw the light in 1846. 



Accustomed as he had been from his earliest childhood to 

 outdoor sport of all descriptions, it is no matter for surprise 

 that on going to Harrow, after a preliminary canter, so to 

 speak, at Elstree School, under Dr. Bernays, the subject of 

 our memoir should quickly come to the front as an athlete ; 

 it being hard to determine, indeed, in which particular branch 

 he excelled most. Suffice it to say that, besides carrying all 

 before him at running and jumping, he won the challenge cups 

 for both fencing and racquets, in the latter defeating Cecil Clay, 

 a feat his conqueror is proud of to this day. Equally good in 

 the cricket field, he played for his school against Eton in 1864 

 and 1865, the eleven, captained by Charlie Buller, being one of 

 the strongest ever sent to Lords from the " School on the Hill." 

 Going on to Cambridge, he played for the 'Varsity against 

 Oxford in 1866, 1867, and 1868. 



It is his riding career, however, which immediately concerns 

 us, and that it commenced auspiciously may be gathered from 

 the fact that Mr. Richardson was not then out of his teens — 

 having only just left Harrow, indeed — when, in November, 

 1865, being then an undergraduate at Cambridge, he won a 

 steeplechase at Huntingdon on a mare of his own. At Peter- 

 borough, the following year, he won the Fitzwilliam Hunt Cup 



234 



