Churchill at the Gallop

Book excerpt: Horses were at the heart of the Greatest Briton of them all, Sir Winston Spencer Churchill. They were his escape in childhood, his challenge in youth, his transport in war, his triumph in sport, and his diversion in dotage. This book traces all the ways horses affected his life, from the rough ride his mother had while returning from a shooting party that caused Churchill's premature birth, to the time spent riding through childhood, and as he grew into adulthood, when riding horses increasingly became the means of proving the courage that was to become the very core of his being. The book covers his riding in the Royal Military Academy, his leading a 1,200 horse gallop of the Oxfordshire Hussars at Yeomanry camp, his boar hunting in France, his playing polo into his 50s, and his purchase at the age of 75 a front running grey that won 14 races and triggered ecstatic scenes as his homburg-hatted, cigar-chewing owner gave V for Victory signs in the unsaddling enclosure.