Gentlemen Riders 



Gorhambury, The Hoo, and others, they can now be almost 

 counted on the fingers of one hand ; so scarce are they, indeed, 

 that it is no exaggeration to say that the only two names to 

 really conjure with of recent years have been those of Mr. 

 George Thursby and the popular gentleman who forms the 

 subject of this chapter, as brilliant a pair of horsemen as ever 

 were tossed into the saddle. That the general public are of 

 the same opinion there is ample testimony from the very cramped 

 odds proffered by the bookies against anything either may 

 happen to be riding. At Lewes, for example, " Any price out- 

 siders ! " is the common cry all through the day ; the wary 

 punter, as a rule, declining to touch anything unless it is the 

 mount of either Mr. Thursby or Mr. Lushington. 



Born in Kent in i860, the subject of our memoir received 

 his education at Cheltenham, afterwards going to Sandhurst, 

 and thence into the 2nd Queen's — now the Royal West Surrey 

 Regiment. It was soon after joining that he had his first 

 winning ride in a pony race at Aldershot ; and the regiment 

 moving to Ireland shortly afterwards, he soon found oppor- 

 tunities for indulging his passion for race-riding, which had 

 possessed him from early boyhood, with the result that before 

 long there was no better-known horseman throughout the 

 Emerald Isle, both over a country and on the flat, than Tommy 

 Lushington. 



During his career, indeed, there is hardly a race of import- 

 ance over there that he has not won at one time or another, 

 including the Irish Derby of 1900, for Major Loder on 

 Gallinaria (dam of Galvini), the fact of his weight enabling him 

 to compete against professional jockeys being naturally a great 

 help. 



In June of the following year, on the same mare, Mr. 

 Lushington won His Majesty's Plate at the Curragh. 



468 



