The PBG celebrate its 225th birth anniversary in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday. At a glittering ceremony, the President presented the silver trumpet and trumpet banner to the regiment which comprises only 230 men with a similar number of horses.

Even as armies the world over undergo a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), the PBG continues with a 75-year-old tradition where the President honours the regiment with a silver trumpet and a silver banner. As the PBG history goes, Lord Reading was the first to confer this distinction on the regiment when it completed 150 years.

He presented two trumpets andtrumpet banners. One banner carried the crest of the Star of India, emblazoned with the Battle Honours of the Corps. The other carried the Coat of Arms of the Viceroy. Each successive Viceroy thereafter presented his banner to the Bodyguard.

``The practice has been maintained to this day by the President. The only difference is that the Coat of Arms has been replaced by the monogram of the President,'' says the regimental history. ``His Excellency the right Honourable Warren Hastings first raised the Governor's Troop of Moghuls,'' it adds.

The bodyguard today are drawn primarily from three States -- Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan -- and are all expert horsemen apart from being trained combat paratroopers, armoured vehicle crewmen and tradesmen.

Despite having served the nation in Sri Lanka and in Siachen, the PBG play a second fiddle when it comes to the President's actual security. Even at the parade, the ultimate responsibility of his protection lay with the Delhi Police.

The first Commandant of theregiment was Colonel Thakur Govind Singh and the adjutant was Sahibzada Yakub Khan who went on to become Pakistan's foreign minister. After partition, the PBG was also divided. When the turn of the gold plated Viceregal buggey came, both India and Pakistan wanted it. Colonel Thakur Govind Singh and Sahibzada Yakub Khan tossed a coin and India got the buggey.