The Long Riders' Guild

Long Rider Films!

In June 2004 Australian Long Rider Tim Cope set off on a 10,000 kilometre solo ride from Mongolia to Hungary. At the conclusion of his epic ride, Tim translated his experiences into a remarkable movie entitled “On the Trail of Genghis Khan.” The ground-breaking film made cinematic history by winning honours at national film festivals in Austria, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. It has now been awarded the 'Grand Prize' for 'Best Film on Mountain Culture' at the Vancouver festival in Canada. In an email to the Guild, Tim reported, “It is quite remarkable that a long riding film has been given such accolades in the face of modern day extreme adventure documentaries. But we are getting horse riding, and these ancient steppe cultures, into the relative mainstream."

Not all Long Riders set out in search of adventure. Canadian Long Rider Rick Blackburn rode 2500 miles from Quebec, Canada to Texas A&M University to deliver DNA samples of his nation's endangered national horse breed. After completing this ride for science, Rick completed work on a moving film entitled, Le Legende du Cheval Canadien (The Legend of the Canadian Horse), which tells the story of the breed that started a colony, forged a continent and is now fighting for its survival. Rick's story, which was nominated for the Gémeaux Award's Best Screenplay, premiered on Canadian television.

There is a saying in Lithuania. Whoever has no past has neither present nor future. Having thrown off the shackles of Communism, a group of Lithuanian Long Riders set out to reclaim their nation's equestrian heritage. Their goal was to ride 2000 kilometres, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, thereby covering the ground originally ridden by the country's greatest equestrian hero. Mounted on Lithuania's famous Žemaitukai horses, the largest team of Long Riders made modern equestrian history. The subsequent film made by Lithuanian Long Rider Gintaras Kaltenis is visually stunning.

Prisoners of the Himalayas is a documentary film aimed at capturing the life of the last Kyrgyz nomads of Afghanistan. The film was directed by French Long Rider Louis Meunier who crossed the country by horse in 2005 and played three years on Kabul´s buzkashi team. Matthieu Paley, the award-winning photographer who worked on the Long  Rider movie, Serko, was the cameraman. The new film documents how the Kyrgyz nomads, who camp in yurts at an altitude of 4,500 meters, survive in the Wakhan Corridor, a thin strip of land hidden in the mountains between Pakistan and Tajikistan. Secluded in their mountain camps, they form the most  isolated high altitude community of the planet.
www.theroofoftheworld.com/index.html   www.paleyphoto.com/

In addition to being a Friend of the Guild, John Hare is one of the world’s most intrepid camel travellers. Across the Sahara on a Camel is a riveting new film which recounts how Hare led a caravan of 22 camels nearly 1500 miles from Nigeria to Libya. Though he followed an ancient caravan route, the trail had been forbidden to foreigners for more than fifty years. The profits from the film are being used to help preserve the wild Bactrian camel.

For more information regarding John’s remarkable movie, visit  www.wildcamels.com

Written by French Long Rider, Jean-Louis Gouraud, Chamane ("Shaman") is about a Yakut shaman and a Muscovite violinist who escape a Soviet gulag on horseback. The shaman, Anatolia, promises to guide Dimitri, but Tolia is shot during the escape and dies. His spirit seems to guide Dimitri as the musician begins the arduous journey home across the snowbound taiga. In towns and settlements, Tolia's name seems magic, securing help for Dimitri. The horse, too, becomes savior and companion.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115861/plotsummary

In 1910 Bud and Temple Abernathy, aged 6 and 10, saddled horses on their Oklahoma ranch and set off alone on a trip of more than two thousand miles to shake hands with their family friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, in New York City.

Now the exploits of the Abernathy boys have been made into a documentary by the University of Oklahoma. Visit the website of The Grand Ride of the Abernathy Boys for more information about this excellent film, which includes some fascinating historical information.

Or read the book about the Abernathys amazing equestrian journeys, published by The Long Riders' Guild Press!

Robin and Louella Hanbury-Tenison have made a film about their journey through Albania, which is being presented at the Cannes Film Festival.  Here is a trailer

A classic adventure by the makers of "King Kong." In 1924, neophyte filmmakers and Long Riders Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack hooked up with journalist and sometime spy Marguerite Harrison and set off to film an adventure. They found excitement, danger and unparalleled drama in the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (now Iran). Twice a year, more than 50,000 people and half a million animals surmounted seemingly impossible obstacles to take their herds to pasture.

This, the first film ever made by Long Riders, is now available again.  Click on picture to visit the website of Milestone Films.

In 1889 Cossack Lieutenant Dmitri Peshkov made equestrian history when he rode 5,500 miles from Siberia to the Czar's palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.  This amazing winter-time ride has now become the genesis of the world's first twenty-first century Long Rider film.  Click on picture to learn more about Serko, the inspirational story of Peshkov and his horse.


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