Brigadier Gerard and glory, he is always ready with a stirring speech or a gallant remark to a lady. Conan Doyle, in making his hero a vain, and often rather uncomprehending, Frenchman, was able to satirise both the stereotypical English view of the French and – by presenting them from Gerard's baffled point of view – English manners and attitudes. Gerard tells the stories from the point of view of an old man now living in retirement in Paris. We discover that he was born in Gascony in the early 1780s (he is 25 in "How the Brigadier Captured Saragossa"). In "How
Brigadier Gerard (horse) him 12 pounds." The theory that Brigadier Gerard was a sick horse and ran below form against Roberto does not bear factual scrutiny; neither his trainer nor owner offered this as an excuse and his official 10 lengths defeat of the third horse, Gold Rod, was on a par with his best form. As his owner, John Hislop, acknowledged, re-examination of the race film showed that he actually beat Gold Rod by 17 lengths. Thus the Brigadier may have run his best ever race in defeat. Brigadier Gerard returned in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and set a new course