Gentlemen Riders 



THE MARQUIS OF CHOLMONDELEY. 



An adept in the saddle from his earliest childhood, and with a 

 natural genius for galloping and jumping over a country, what 

 more natural than that the subject of our memoir — the popular 

 " Rock " of his salad days — should at an early stage of his 

 career be fired with a laudable ambition to earn the same 

 distinction in a racing-jacket that had already been his when 

 wearing a red coat. 



Accordingly, in 1879, we find him sporting silk for the 

 first time in a private sweepstakes at Lichfield, against Lord 

 Shrewsbury and Captain Harry Brocklehurst, at catch weights 

 on 12 St., each rider only allowed to give £2^ for the animal he 

 rode. As a result Lord Rocksavage — as he then was — carry- 

 ing 16 lbs. overweight, was second. 



He did not appear in public again until 1887, at Bangor, 

 where, riding a 15-st. hunter, called Catechism, he had bought 

 from the late Lord Waterford, he finished fourth for a three- 

 mile steeplechase sweepstakes. The week after, a bad fall 

 from his hack, who fell with and rolled over his rider on the 

 road, with the result that he nearly lost his life, kept him out 

 of the saddle for a long while. 



In the autumn of that year Lord Rocksavage went to live 

 at Wroughton, in Wiltshire, where he had a few horses in 

 training, and in the following spring, having got his weight, 

 which, during his illness, had increased to 13 st. 7 lbs., in what 

 he terms his " Birthday " suit, down to a considerable extent, 

 went in for race-riding on a more extended scale. 



Commencing at Ludlow, he scored at the first attempt by 

 winning the two-mile Hunters' Flat Race on High Art, carrying 



298 



