Gentlemen Riders 



" This must save a horse's as well as the man's strength, 

 and you can also put your horse how and where you will at his 

 fences. This I always considered won me the Grand National 

 so far as I myself could help my dear old mare in doing so, and 

 I know I never changed my hands once during the race. 



" Rowland Reynolds was a great friend of my youth besides, 

 quite a gentleman in manners, morals, and ideas. During our 

 long rides together I think I learned more English — certainly 

 to speak it well — better than by the regular lesson I took at 

 school. 



" As a result of our many conversations all about England 

 and its sports and pastimes, it became my constant dream as a 

 boy to go there, and see it all for myself — to hunt and ride 

 races — and above all win the Grand National ! I had quite 

 made up my mind as to that, and the idea never left me until 

 the day I did win it. 



" When I think how seldom such daydreams really come 

 off — how many of them are dreamt and how few realised, it 

 seems to me that in my case it was Fate, and nothing else. 



" Although our country at home is hunted over by the 

 Pardubic staghounds, my brothers and I were not allowed to 

 go out with them until we were eighteen ; on the other hand, 

 my father kept a very good and sporting pack of harriers for 

 us at home, which I first of all whipped in to, and afterwards 

 hunted when I was fifteen. This, no doubt, taught me a good 

 deal about hunting, and made me passionately fond of it. As 

 to race-riding, I did as much at home as I could, and was 

 allowed to during the year I joined the Army, being then, as 

 you may say, free to do as I liked, school and university 

 regulations having no more to be regarded. The first race 

 I ever rode and won was on the flat, and my first mount in a 

 steeplechase a winning one, on a little horse by Cambuscan 



372 



