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Click on photograph of Ana Beker to read a eye-witness account of the
little six-year-old girl who remembers meeting the Long Rider in 1954.
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Click on picture to read a terrifying story by
Henry Coke of
a death in a river during the California Gold Rush. |
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Click on picture to read about the
heartbreaking loss suffered by the Japanese Samurai, Baron Fukushima, on his amazing 14,000 kilometre journey from Berlin to
Tokyo in 1892. |
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Click on picture to read about Hugh
Clapperton's amazing Long Ride across the Sahara. |
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Italian
Long Riders Dario Masarotti and Antonietta Spizzo spend as much time as
possible in the saddle. Click on photo to read Antonietta's
description of the horrors of crossing borders on horseback, balanced by
the joys of travelling through Europe and enjoying the local hospitality. |
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Kathrin Nienhaus has just returned to Germany from Mongolia. Click
on photograph to read her fascinating description of her journey with Tim Cope, and her impressions
of Mongolia. |
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In
1950, CIA agent Douglas MacKiernan (left) and his young friend, former
student turned espionage agent, Frank Bessec, found themselves being
hunted across the Takla Makan desert by armed Chinese communists.
Their daring horseback escape across Western China and into Tibet, which
they thought had led them to safety, ended in tragedy. After fifty
years, the Top Secret diary which Bessec kept during this amazing
equestrian journey has been declassified by the American State Department
and is offered to the public for the first time by The Long Riders' Guild.
Click on picture to read these
rare documents. |
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Click on picture to read about the Overland
Westerners. In
1912, four riders embarked on a 20,000 mile cross-country trip they hoped would
bring them fortune and fame. It was called the ride of the century, a
20,000-mile, 3-year odyssey through desert, mountain, and swamp that four young
horsemen dreamed would make them famous.
Instead, they rode into oblivion.
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Though he is known today as "the father of
evolution," famous English biologist Charles Darwin was also an avid
equestrian traveler. During the five years in which he made his
scientific journey around the world, Darwin took every opportunity to
explore the continents of South America, Australia and Africa on
horseback. The scientist-turned-Long Rider wrote of "the pleasure of
living in the open air with the sky for a roof and the ground for a
table."
Click on picture to read about Charles
Darwin's equestrian adventures on three continents during the 1830s. |
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If you have ever complained
about travelling by train or by coach, click on picture to see how truly
horrendous such a journey could be back in the 1860s. |
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Click on picture to read about
Jean-Louis Gouraud's astonishing journey à la Turkmène from Paris to Moscow. |
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The Khamba warlord in Tibet had given George Patterson a deadly mission -
carry word to the outside world that the Chinese Communists were about to
secretly invade the mountain kingdom. The problem was that the winter
of 1949 had turned the mighty Himalayas into a wall of ice and the only trail
leading to India had never been traveled by horsemen! Could George and his
horse survive the snow covered journey and bring back help to his adopted
homeland? Click on picture to
read the unbelievable equestrian episode "To Save a Country."
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