A quick digression. When they originally appeared, in the early 16th Century, "Dragoons" were supposed to be mounted infantry, armed with matchlock muskets or early flintlock "snaphaunces". About the time of the English Civil Wars (1642 - 1660), most armies included regiments of these troops. But as part of an almost inevitable progression, they would find that they couldn't stand up to determined infantry (they lacked pikes) or run away from cavalry (they got the worst horses), and they exchanged their firearms for swords and became cavalymen.

This happened to *all* regiments of dragoons, light dragoons and "light horse" raised in the British army during the 17th and 18th centuries. "Light Horse" were usually volunteer units, e.g. "Kingston's Light Horse", raised in Nottingham in 1745, and present at Culloden in the following year.

Only towards the end of the 19th Century, did the "Light Horse" or mounted infantry concept become fashionable again, with the invention of the magazine rifle. In the Boer War (1899 - 1902), the British army found that their Cavalry units, burdened with lances, sabres and masses of shiny bits and pieces which all had to be polished, were crippled by two or three days' hard service, while the various colonial and british light horse units were still going, regardless of their lowly social position.

And lack of sabres and class didn't stop Australian Light Horse units performing a few dramatic and effective charges in Palestine during World War I (Beersheba, Samakh).