As the sun rose we were woken by a trumpeter, and, after water, feed.... |
... and a rub down, Sultan Khan used to arrive to saddle me up. |
Then we went on parade and were inspected by our officer, on his very
grand charger. The horse next but one to me took a delight in biting
him. |
After this we might do some drill at the gallop. Some horse always
ran away. We called them "shooting stars." |
Perhaps we would do dummy thrusting. I enjoyed this as Sultan Khan
had good hands and the jumps were no effort. |
Then came stables. The Colonel Sahib followed by all the important
ones would come around and point out all the thin horses. He would
order teeth to be filed, feed changed or unpleasant medicine to be given. |
In the evenings we sometimes had tent pegging, which we all enjoyed,
or... |
... were taken out to graze and watch our better bred brothers play polo. |
At last the day came to an end and horses and men settled down to a quiet
gossip. |
The only other distraction before dawn came again, was the orderly
officer, who usually caught me eating my bedding. |
