The Long Riders' Guild

Stories from The Road - page 3

More thrilling adventures from Long Riders, past and present, all over the world.

The Long Riders' Guild has received another update from Billy and Christy, the intrepid duo riding from the top of Tunisia to the bottom of South Africa.  They are now in Uganda, where nobody has seen a horse since 1966.  Click on picture to read the latest instalment.

Though the Long Riders’ Guild hosts a pantheon of legends, few could equal the dangerous adventures which “Don Carlos” Thurlow-Craig survived. After have left his native Wales, the footloose youth ventured to South America, where, mounted on his trusty Criollo gelding, Bobby, he rode in Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and the Gran Chaco jungle during the early 1920s. Click on picture to read a recollection of Don Carlos’ blazing life. It recalls a man who rode as hard as Tschiffely and wrote with as much passion as Hemmingway.

Canadian Long Rider Bonnie Folkins’ mission is to use her horse and camera to arrive at a deeper understanding of Central Asia’s remaining nomads. Though she has travelled and photographed in Italy, India, Australia and Latin America, the impassioned Long Rider has been repeatedly drawn back to the land of horses and free riders.  Click on picture to read more.

 

Daniel Robinson decided to travel from China to India.  The young man made a journey which required equal doses of courage, stamina and naivety, but his journey had ended with him being unfairly imprisoned. The facts of the resulting campaign to have Daniel freed are detailed in the editorial entitled “The Price of a Pilgrimage Luckily, Daniel was freed, but the location and welfare of his two faithful mules, Mae Ling and Hu Mae, remained a mystery. But in this story Daniel writes about how he was finally able to rescue the animals from Indian custody. .
Long Rider Ed Anderson has some potentially life-saving wisdom for those planning to ride the Pacific Coast Trail, which runs from the Mexican to the Canadian borders through some of the United States' most challenging mountain terrain.  Click on picture to learn more.

 

No mere mileage counter, Katie Russell’s account of riding across the western American states is remarkable in terms of its emotional honesty, personal insight and equestrian wisdom. Click on picture to read this true classic available on line. 

Journey to the Western Regions - In 1414 a Chinese diplomat named Chen Cheng was ordered by Emperor Yongle to undertake a hazardous equestrian journey to the distant city of Herat. Located in today’s modern Afghanistan, Herat was then the capital of the Timurid empire. Chen Cheng’s mission was to deliver precious Chinese silks to Emperor Shahrukh. In exchange, the Chinese Long Rider was ordered to obtain a large herd of the valuable horses used by Shahrukh’s legendary mounted archers.  Though a handful of scholars were aware of Chen Cheng’s journey, Dr. Sally Church recently completed the first translation of the Long Rider’s diary. The result is a day to day account which has the ring of authenticity about it. Chen Cheng, runs into many problems, all of which he records. While these include snow storms and bad trails, one of the most telling is the brief account of how the horses drown trying to cross the river.  There are many occasions during the nine month journey when Chen and his friends are just too tired to continue, preferring instead to take several days away from the intense rigours of their saddles. Click on picture to read the oldest known example of an Historical Long Rider’s “Story from the Road.”

Click on this picture to read a summary of Bob Seney's travels, together with some sound advice for would-be Long Riders.
Click on picture to read Long Rider Jeremy James's extremely amusing and highly entertaining account of an episode on his journey from Italy to Wales with his Criollo gelding, Gonzo.  It involves a lot of wine and a nun on a bicycle!  "Vestments billowing black behind her, her starched wimple flapping, bike-bell ringing, she came pelting toward us like some demented terrestrial bat."
Click on picture to read Long Rider Gary Ziegler's account of his journey on horseback across Mexico's great divide.
Click on picture to read an extraordinary story by W. C. Rose of a ride of somewhat over six thousand miles, from Mexico to the Argentine, undertaken towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Click on picture to read a hair-raising story of how Long Rider Harry Rutstein almost drowns with his Bushkashi horse in one of the highest lakes of the world!
Click on picture to read Roger Pocock's fascinating story about "Riding the Outlaw Trail." During his amazing and unique journey from Canada to Mexico in 1899-1900 he met Butch Cassidy and the other outlaws at Hole-in-the-Wall, Jackson's Hole and Robbers Roost.  This is the first time Pocock's story has been published in more than a hundred years.  Because of the high quality images on that page, please be patient while it loads.
Click on photograph of Butch Cassidy to read a fascinating story about how a family of Long Riders rode across Argentina in the hoof-prints of the famous outlaw - and made some amazing discoveries - including the murder of a Historical Long Rider!

Click on picture to read a story, dated August, 1937, by  English Long Rider Edward Percy Stebbings.  This article described how a host of British horse riders set out from eight starting points, bound for a central meeting place on the south coast at Eastbourne. Not only were the editors of the sponsoring magazine surprised that more than twice as many people as expected decided to ride across Southern England, they also reported that one contestant came from as far away as Norway. Nor was an age a factor, as the oldest rider was 76 and the youngest only 11 years old.  The greatest Long Rider of the twentieth century, Aimé Tschiffely, went down to Eastbourne to meet the riders.

Click on photograph of Robin and Louella Hanbury-Tenison, who completed a Long Ride across Albania in 2007, to read a fascinating story about the history of equestrian travel in this almost-forgotten country.

In spite of its peaceful reputation Tibet has the dubious honour of being the only country The Guild is aware of where Long Riders were repeatedly murdered.  Click on picture to read an investigation of  Tibetan equestrian travel history which demonstrates some of the most astonishing and dangerous horse journeys ever undertaken came to tragic conclusions in what was once known as “the hermit kingdom.”

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