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Historical Long Riders
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Once they were famous from the Atlantic to the Pacific. If you had asked any American school children in 1911 who Bud and Temple Abernathy were, they would have given you a look of disbelief. “Everyone knows the Abernathy Boys,” they would have said. And they would have been correct, because the mounted adventures of the little Long Riders from Oklahoma Territory had taken the United States by storm. On their first equestrian journey in 1909 the tiny travelers, aged nine and five, encountered a host of Old West obstacles, including wolves and wild rivers, when they rode more than 1,000 miles from Oklahoma to Sante Fe and back – ALONE! The following year the intrepid brothers set their sights on New York City, which they reached after a month of hard riding. Along the way Orville Wright offered to take them up in his new-fangled airplane and President Taft gave them a warm welcome when they reached the White House. Kids envied them. Women adored them. Grown men pulled hair from their horses’ tails to keep as souvenirs. This public frenzy culminated when Bud and Temple rode their Oklahoma ponies alongside Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in a victory parade witnessed by more than a million cheering New Yorkers. Even though they were only six and ten years old, Temple and Bud Abernathy were a national sensation. In the summer of 1911, they did the impossible. They rode nearly 4,000 miles, from New York to San Francisco, in only sixty-two days. Once again, the Abernathy Boys had made a historic ride without any adult assistance and accomplished an equestrian feat which has never been equaled. Their remarkable story entitled, Ride the Wind was penned by a member of their family in 1910. |
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In 1632, at the age of six, Queen Christina Alexandra was crowned as ruler of Sweden. Until 1654 the young woman enjoyed wealth, power and prestige. Then Christina shocked her fellow Swedes by abdicating the throne she had inherited from her father, choosing instead to live in Italy where she could openly practice the Catholic faith which she had secretly converted to. Setting out from Stockholm attired in men’s clothes, Christina rode across Europe to Rome, where she was greeted by the Pope. Upon her death, the Swedish Long Rider was accorded the rare honor of being buried in St. Peter’s Basilica. The charismatic Christina was further enshrined when Greta Garbo portrayed the equestrian traveller in the 1934 film, “Queen Christina.” |
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President Chester Arthur –
Though he is normally remembered as being the twenty-first President of the United States, Chester A. Arthur was also a Historical Long Rider who made a unique American equestrian journey. The son of Irish immigrants, Arthur turned a thriving law practice into a political career that resulted in him being elected Vice President in 1880.
When President James Garfield was slain by an assassin in July, 1881, Vice-President Arthur was unexpectedly sworn in as the country’s leader. He served in this capacity until March, 1885. To the chagrin of corrupt politicians, the new president insisted on political honesty. He required that certain vital government positions be obtainable only through competitive written examinations and protected other employees against removal for political reasons.Though he enjoyed a reputation as being one of the most society-conscious presidents, because of his style of dress and courtly manner, Arthur maintained another side to his life. Despite the responsiblities of his office, the president was an avid fisherman and hunter who enjoyed spending time away from the political pressures of Washington DC. It was this longing for nature that prompted the portly president to become a Historical Long Rider. When the noted landscape painter, Albert Bierstadt, displayed his beautiful depiction of Yellowstone Falls in the White House, Arthur decided the time had come for him to visit this legendary part of the American kindgom. The President proceeded by train with General Sheridan to Wyoming. Accompanied by an escort of cavalry, President Arthur proceeded to mount up and spend a month exploring Yellowstone by horseback. Many hundreds of miles later, the refreshed executive returned to the duties of his political office. Soon after his term in office came to a conclusion, Arthur’s health failed. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 57. Though he had entered the White House unexpectedly, Chester Arthur enjoyed a lasting legacy as a trusted leader. "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired… more generally respected," one historian noted. Yet of even more interest to The Guild was Arthur’s desire to ride horses, enjoy nature and preserve his privacy. “I may be President of the United States but my private life is nobody’s damned business.” |
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Nan Jane Aspinwall - after a five-year
search, The Long Riders' Guild is able to confirm the legendary equestrian
journey of the first woman to ride across North America alone. Nan Jane
Aspinwall-Gable led an extraordinary life, which included being a headline
act as a sharp-shooter in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. According to
recently-discovered documentation, a disagreement between rival showmen
Buffalo Bill Cody and Pawnee Bill led to the circumstances under which Nan
made her solo transcontinental ride.
Could a woman ride from the Pacific to the Atlantic alone? the showmen argued. Nan set off in September 1910 to prove it was possible. Mounted on her thoroughbred, Lady Ellen, the lady Long Rider carried a letter from San Francisco Mayor McCarthy addressed to his colleague, Mayor Gaynor in New York. During the course of the journey, Nan refused to allow anyone else to care for Lady Ellen, even to the point of shoeing the horse herself fourteen times. After months on the road, Two-Gun Nan and Lady Ellen arrived in New York on July 13th, 1911. According to newspaper reports at the time, the hardy equestrian traveller was awarded a diamond medal for endurance by Richard K. Fox, the long-time publisher of The National Police Gazette. In an amazing historical aside, the story of Nan's medal was later plagiarized by the notorious equestrian travel charlatan, Frank Hopkins, whose story was recently made into the fictitious movie, "Hidalgo." Although researchers have spent years trying to find information about this amazing Long Rider, her story was only uncovered thanks to the diligent academic research of Mary C. Higginbotham. For decades, equestrian researchers had fruitlessly searched for clues to the ride and life of Nan Aspinwall. Mary discovered that Nan's work as an entertainer and traveller was undertaken under her married name of Nan Gable. The Long Riders' Guild is proud to announce the forthcoming publication of the story of Two-Gun Nan entitled "In Genuine Cowgirl Fashion." This book contains all of Mary Higginbotham's unique research and will be amply illustrated with never-before-seen photographs of Nan in the saddle and on the stage. Click here to read a beautiful poem about Two-Gun Nan written by the famous cowboy poet and Friend of The Guild, TJ Casey. |
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Mikhail Asseyev - rode from Kiev, Russia to the newly-erected Eiffel Tower in Paris, France in 1889. |
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Ann Bailey - made many Long Rides in Virginia during the late 18th century on her horse "Liverpool." |
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Richard St. Barbe Baker - rode across New Zealand in 1963 at the age of 74. He was a revered forester who helped establish the International Tree Foundation. Ultimately, there were chapters in over 100 countries. By some estimates, organizations Barbe founded or assisted have been responsible for planting at least 26 trillion trees, internationally. He started learning Chinese when he was in his 80s because he planned to ride across the Gobi desert. He never did that, but he did tour China when he was in his 90s to encourage tree-planting. |
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Jean-François Ballereau - made a series of rides in Europe and North America, then rode from Argentina to Columbia. Author of "Cavalier dans l'Ouest", "Mes Chevaux au pays Navajo", and "Lune de Miel à Cheval". |
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August Barke - Rode from Essen-Ruhr to Asia and Europe, starting on 1st July 1928. |
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Daisy Bates was an Irish-Australian journalist, welfare worker and lifelong student of Australian Aboriginal culture. She migrated from Ireland to Australia in the 1880s. When an opportunity arose to start a cattle ranch in a distant part of the country, Daisy rode three thousand miles in her sidesaddle across the Outback. She spent the rest of her life championing the rights of the Aborigines, was the author of a book on the subject and was later awarded an OBE by the King of England for her charitable work. |
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A great many equestrian travelers could say they were inspired to take to the saddle because of the exploits of someone who rode before them. However John Beard is the only horseback traveler whose journey can be directly linked to the influence of the famous Buffalo Bill Cody. Beard determined as a child that he wanted to see the Wild West from the back of a horse after a visit to Cody’s legendary Wild West show . Yet it was to be more than sixty years after seeing the flamboyant American showman before Beard, and his wife Lulu Beard, finally mounted their dreams. Setting off on a matched pair of horses, Black Diamond and Black Fairy, the Beards left to discover the long cherished equestrian quest of the author’s youth. Their mission in 1948 was to ride the length of the Old Oregon Trail. What followed was a 2,500 mile odyssey from Oregon to Missouri through a vast sea of weariness, thirst, hunger, hardship, and danger as the aged equestrians rode down the trail of their pioneer forefathers. John's book Saddles East is more than a mere tale of adventure, it is the romantic story of two pilgrims of the sunrise riding back into the morning of their youth, hunting for America’s yesterday with everything they own on the backs of their faithful horses. |
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Dr. John Bell was a Scottish medical man who journeyed from St. Petersburg, Russia, riding across Siberia, before completing his sixteen-month journey at Peking, China in 1717. During his journey Bell met the Dalai Lama of Tibet and observed the equestrian practices of the people he met along the way. |
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The world of
equestrian travel seldom recognizes international borders, being content to
urge its mounted adherents to ride where they will. Few people better
symbolize this ancient philosophy of unrestricted freedom than Ana
Beker. The only child of Lithuanians who had immigrated to
Argentina, Beker grew up surrounded by horses on the vast, wind-swept
pampas. Her earliest memories were centered around these four legged
friends. She literally grew up in the saddle, ignoring the traditions of the
male oriented society which said that a woman’s place was by the hearth, not
in the saddle. History might have been content to let her stay in her
homeland, until a fateful meeting changed her fate forever. In the early
1940s Beker heard a lecture given by Aimé Tschiffely, who had himself ridden
from Argentina to Washington DC ten years earlier. When the famous horseman
scoffed at the young girl’s idea to ride alone even further than he had,
from Argentina to Canada, Beker accepted Tschiffely’s challenge, mounted up,
and never looked back. What followed was an equestrian journey of Homeric
proportions. With her eyes always on the horizon, Beker began a 17,000 mile
mounted odyssey that would fix her place in the annals of equestrian travel
history. Her book, The
Courage to Ride,
is thus not only a thrilling adventure tale, it is also a true account of a
wild heart that would not be conquered. The Long Riders' Guild were thrilled to receive an email from Suzanne Copenhagen, who wrote to say that she recalled Ana riding into her parents' front yard in 1954 to seek shelter for the night! "I was not quite six years old when Ana Beker stayed overnight at our house outside Sandy Spring, Maryland, while her two horses enjoyed the hospitality of our barn," Suzanne wrote. To read Suzanne's charming recollections of meeting this legendary Long Rider, please click here. To read an excerpt from Ana's book, in which Ana writes about how giant condors tried to kill her horses in the Andes mountains, please click here. |
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In addition to being probably the best known side-saddle rider of her day, Irene Benjamin was also a determined Long Rider. After a near fatal riding accident which left her partially paralysed, Irene was told she would never walk again. Determined to prove the doctors wrong, Irene not only eventually got back into the saddle, she gave mounted displays all over the world and undertook extended equestrian journeys in America and Australia. In 1998 Irene set out to ride from Glasgow, Scotland to Surrey, England in order to raise money for the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Having recently survived cancer chemotherapy treatment, many advised this extraordinary woman not to attempt the journey. Irene was determined not to succumb to either disease or dissent. She set off on the 1250 mile ride full of determination and courage. Sadly, a few days into the journey Irene fell ill with pneumonia and was taken to hospital, where she died nine days later. In honour of her extraordinary courage, the International Side Saddle Organization instituted an annual “Irene Benjamin Handicapped Rider Award.” |
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In 1923 Charles Bernheimer led an equestrian expedition across one of the horse-hostile portions of the United States. Determined to locate and photograph the legendary “Rainbow Bridge,” a gigantic stone arch previously only observed by the Navajo, Bernheimer rode across northern Arizona, then entered southern Utah, in search of this elusive natural wonder. When Bernheimer arrived, he found that the massive stone archway measured 274 feet wide and 308 feet high. Sadly, Bernheimer’s travels are no longer necessary to see this natural wonder, as the damming of the nearby Colorado river created Lake Powell, a watery giant on which weekend pleasure boaters now float up to the foot of the formerly mysterious Rainbow Bridge. |
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While stationed on the island of Corfu in 1838, Captain J. J. Best decided to use his leave to explore Albania on horseback. Consequently he set off in November of that year to ride through the seldom-seen land. The isolated country which the Long Rider, accompanied by his fellow English officers, Captains Murray and Cunynghame, and Lieutenant Shaw, proposed to ride through was a province of the Ottoman Empire and strangers were neither permitted nor welcomed. In his book, “Excursions in Albania,” Best described how he obtained official army permission to explore the hermit kingdom of Europe. This permission was vitally important because eight months prior to this Prince Pierre Napoleon, son of Lucien Bonaparte, went into the country illegally to hunt, whereupon he and his group became involved in a lethal shoot-out with the mountainous inhabitants, the result of which was that two Albanians were killed and the entire countryside was alerted against foreigners. English officers had been sneaking into Albania for some time to hunt without any official Albanian authorization. So Best's recognized journey was historically important as it appears he may have been the most important English traveller to explore the country since Lord Byron rode there in 1809. Best’s book is packed with a variety of equestrian adventures. However, one piece of equestrian travel advice offered by the author is worth recalling. "We had not resumed our journey long before we came to another river, and hearing there were many more which we must cross in our day's journey, we decided on adopting a plan which I strongly recommend to all persons who may meet with similar difficulties in travelling through a wild country with a small allowance of clothes. Sitting in wet clothes is likely to cause rheumatism, so, after some deliberation, we came to the conclusion, that in a warm climate like Albania the lower garments, which we usually wear in the civilized part of Europe, ought to be considered as useless encumbrances, and fit only for fashionables who study their personal appearances. We therefore (do not blush, gentle reader) established a fashion of our own, and rode without any at all! By this remarkably simple and ingenious contrivance, for which we took to ourselves a great deal of credit, we preserved a set of dry clothes to put on at the end of our day's ride, and ran no risk of getting rheumatism by keeping in wet ones. We performed a considerable part of this last part of our journey in this extraordinary costume. What a fine subject for a caricaturist! At first I was disposed to laugh a good deal, but a few hours up to my girths in water cooled astonishingly my sense of the ridiculous." In his merry story the young English Long Rider recalled how he and his friends avoided being murdered by trigger-happy Albanians, witnessed the miseries of a local slave market and out-rode local brigands. "This ended the equestrian part of my journey, which was the most exciting and enjoyable excursion I had ever made in my life," Best wrote. |
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