But what pleased me most in my success was that it enabled me to start a Shire Horse Show at Moreton-in-Marsh. The consequence was that in a few years’ time the farmers round about me were able to show a grand lot of cart horses, and my triumph was complete when one of them sold a gelding to the agent of one of the railway companies for a hundred guineas. Those who bred from pedigree mares made fancy prices for their foals, and the neighbourhood became famous among breeders and dealers as a horse centre. For the last quarter of a century and more I have been much mixed up with the horse world. For many years I was on the Council of the London Shire Horse Society and was finally elected President. With the International Horse Show at Olympia I have been connected from the beginning—first as judge and afterwards as director. With Lord Lonsdale as our President I think we may claim to have done something towards keeping up horse-breeding at a moment when motor traction had dealt it a heavy blow; nor is that all. International competition has taught our people that we are not the only heirs of the centaurs, and has stimulated our army riders especially to new endeavours. When I was a boy it used to be the fashion to laugh at the idea that any foreigner could ride. We know better now. The French, the Belgian, the Italian and the Russian cavalry-men are all magnificent horsemen, and at first absolutely beat our men out of the field at show work. But the lesson has been taken to heart, and with practice and a little encouragement from the War Office, our officers have shown that they can hold their own against all comers. But to produce such perfect machinery as is turned out by the school at Saumur for instance, needs backing from above. I went last year (1914) at the invitation of the Société Hippique to see the Saumur men ride—a piece of absolute perfection as illustrating the _entente cordiale_ between rider and mount, the brain and will-power of the man commanding the movement of every muscle of the horse. In breeding I did not confine myself to Shires. I inherited a famous old thoroughbred stallion called Arbitrator, that Admiral Rous pronounced to be the best model of a steeplechaser that he ever saw. He was the sire of a good many capital hunters and carriage horses. I also bred Hackneys for a few years, but they were not a success, though to head the stud I bought a son of Sir Walter Gilbey’s famous horse Danegelt.