Gentlemen Riders 



Another instance in point is the fine horseman who forms 

 the subject of this chapter, and who acknowledges that he owes 

 his success in the saddle in a great measure to the fact that, 

 being brought up at Chipstead, Surrey, of which place his 

 father was Rector, and consequently, all amongst the race- 

 horses, he spent a great deal of his time in the early mornings, 

 when home from Cheltenham for the holidays, in riding schools 

 and gallops for the numerous trainers in the neighbourhood. 

 Ben Land at that time had charge of a good many horses 

 at Walton Heath, and that he must have had a high opinion 

 of the young 'un's capabilities as a horseman may be adduced 

 from the fact that he gave him carte blanche to ride his horses 

 as often as ever he liked to turn up, and that, as may easily be 

 imagined, was pretty frequently. In 1865 Mr. Aubertin joined 

 the 22nd Regiment, then at Malta, sailing thence the following 

 year to Canada, in which country, at a not very high-class 

 meeting at Fredericton, New Brunswick, where a goodish many 

 of the jockeys were coloured "gemmen," he won his first race. 



The following year, when home on leave, he sported silk 

 for the first time in England on a horse called Quicksilver, in 

 a Hunters' Stake at Croydon. On the regiment returning 

 home in 1869, Mr. Aubertin had plenty of mounts. At the 

 Wambledon meeting he won a race on Danebury, and was 

 second on Bellhanger to George Ede on The Demon in the 

 United Stakes. In 1870 he went to Cork to ride a horse 

 called Snip at the Cork Park meeting. The course in those 

 days was a very stiff one, and nearly all came down in the 

 race. In that year Captain Aubertin exchanged into the 

 Queen's Bays, and when quartered at Brighton rode a good 

 many races for Mr. Frewin, winning the Southdown Cup two 

 years in succession on Exning, and the Sussex Stakes on the 

 same horse. At this period there were a good many meetings 



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