“With a decent troop officer, when we rode up to an outlying pub on the edge of a village, he’d say, ‘It’s all right to go in for a drink.’ …… After several grand days like this we’d ride back into Tidworth camp, and probably see the wretched infantry fellows staggering in off a route march to reach our horses’ water‐troughs. They’d dip their heads right inside the trough to get a drink and to get cool, and as I sat on my horse watching them struggling I thanked my lucky stars that I was a cavalryman. There was a saying then which was to be greatly used in the War when cavalry NCOs were offered commissions in the infantry: ‘A third‐class ride is better than a first‐class walk any day.’”

John Cusack, MM, and Ivor Herbert. (1972) Scarlet Fever: A Lifetime with Horses.