Horatio Ross

However, he was reluctant to engage too deeply in any activity that might distract him from his primary and abiding passion for field sports.

In 1826, on Clinker, he won a famous steeplechase against Captain Douglas, on Radical, a horse owned by Lord Kennedy.

Despite having just finished a full day's shooting, he set off at 9.00pm to walk nearly 100 miles from Banchory, Kincardineshire, to Inverness.

He took part in many matches with the leading shots of the day, such as General Anson, and was much assisted by his extraordinary fitness and stamina, which lasted into his old age.

[1] He and his sons regularly carried all before them at the most prestigious NRA annual rifle competitions at Wimbledon, London.

The competition extended up to eleven hundred yards, a test of nerve, judgment, and, most of all, of eyesight, which it would seem wholly impossible for any man in his sixty-sixth year to stand successfully.

In the society amid which Captain Ross spent his youth challenges and duels were no uncommon occurrence.

But he acted as second no fewer than sixteen times, and was justly proud of the fact that on every single occasion he had prevented a shot being fired.