Bred at Yafford in 1908, Warrior was taught to be fearless in battle by walking into the roughest waves at Brook Bay by Jack Seely.

He had many narrow escapes but survived the 1914 - 1918 war in which 484,000 horses were killed. In September 1914, for example, he had to gallop 10 miles across country to escape encirclement by the advancing enemy.

In 1915 a shell cut the horse beside Warrior clean in half and a few days later another shell destroyed his stable, seconds after he had left it.

In 1917, only frantic digging extricated him from mud in Passchendaele, and only three days before on March 30, 1917, a direct hit on the ruined villa in which he was housed left him trapped beneath a shattered beam.

He took part in one of the last great cavalry charges at Moreuil Wood on 30 March 1918. After his injury in 1918, Warrior recovered sufficiently to join the victory parade in Hyde Park and in 1921 came back to win the Isle of Wight Point to Point.

After 20 years of peaceful retirement in Brook and Mottistone, Warrior lived until 1941 when it was felt that the extra corn rations needed to keep the 33-year-old gelding could not be justified in wartime.

There are still a number of local people today as I rode along who have memories of seeing or sitting on Warrior when they were young. He was one of the most famous warhorses ever known.

As Jack Seely described it: whether it was in rest billets, in reserve, approaching the line, or in the midst of battle, men would say, not ‘Here comes the General,’ but ‘Here’s old Warrior.’