The Rider in Khaki

The Rider in Khaki is a horse racing novel by Nat Gould (1857-1919), the English-born Australian author whose racing fiction dominated the genre across the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. The khaki of the title connects the racing material with military themes, suggesting a wartime or military-officer protagonist whose racing involvement provides the dramatic situation.

Gould had written across both his Australian years as a racing journalist and his later English career in racing fiction, accumulating personal knowledge that fed into his novels. The military-racing combination was a recurring theme in his work, since the English officer class had been deeply involved in racing throughout the nineteenth century and the connection provided natural dramatic material.

The book follows the typical Gould pattern with a particular horse, its connections, betting interests, romantic complications, and the climactic race providing the plot structure. Gould’s sizable output made him one of the most commercially successful English popular novelists of his generation.