GALLOPING THROUGH LIFE charts the author's enchanting childhood in rural Ireland, his time at Eton and Sandhurst, and his career as a young cavalry officer in the 10th Hussars where he made his name both as an amateur jockey in both point-to-point and National Hunt racing and as a show-jumper. It also introduces the reader to the glamorous world of international polo and famous players such as the author's two polo-playing first cousins the Marquis of Waterford, and Lord Patrick Beresford, and also to the author's close friend the late Major Ronald Ferguson, a fellow technical advisor to Jilly Cooper's Polo. His subsequent career as a polo player and coach took him to such diverse locations as India, East Africa, Cyprus, South America, Central America and Hawaii, but most importantly Palm Beach, Florida, where he taught for many years. His greatest achievement, however, was the residential Whitfield Court Polo School in County Waterford. This was where people from all over the world gathered to learn Hugh Dawnay's revolutionary polo playing techniques.