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Historical Long Riders
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Jorge Molina Salas was an Argentine gaucho who rode from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1946. |
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A young German Lieutenant, Erich von Salzmann, rode 6,000 kilometers from Tientsin, China to Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1903. He made this remarkable ride, including crossing the Gobi Desert, in only 173 days. We believe von Salzmann would almost certainly have known of Baron Fukushima's journey from Germany a few years earlier. von Salzmann is the author of Im Sattel Durch Zentralasien, part of The Long Riders German-language Wanderreiter Collection. | ||||||||
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The nineteenth century can rightly claim to have seen the birth and travels of a host of brave men and women who undertook great hardships in their quest for adventure. Legendary names come to mind like Sven Hedin, Sir Richard Burton and Isabella Bird. Yet sadly, one name is largely forgotten today, that is Henry Savage Landor. Though Savage Landor became justly famous for making a series of trips to many outlandish and dangerous places, none of his trips aroused public sentiment like his famed journey through Tibet in the late 1890s. Fearing her covetous foreign neighbors in British-occupied India and Imperial China, this high Himalayan country had sealed her borders to outsiders. Thereafter a number of Europeans, including several British explorers, had been detected by Tibetan officials and turned back before they could reach the nation’s isolated capital at Lhasa. With such a geographic prize at stake, Savage Landor determined to set off with a small group of native porters to reach the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, by stealth. To say he failed would be too polite a term for what occurred next. After making his way across vast and primitive lands, the would-be explorer was detected by the Tibetans and arrested. Once they determined that the Englishman was traveling without the official sponsorship of his government, the situation turned from bad to worse. Savage Landor and his servants were first imprisoned, then brutally tortured. At one point the explorer had his arms tied behind his back. He was then mounted on a half-wild horse, placed in an infamous “torture saddle” that had spikes sticking into his back, and forced to ride many miles, all the while being slowly torn to bits by the cruel spikes. This blood-chilling account of equestrian adventure entitled In the Forbidden Land still makes for page-turning excitement. | ||||||||
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Max Schiffler - According to a South American newspaper story published in 1907, Schiffler had already ridden in the Far East and was attempting to ride through Argentina and Brazil. No record has been discovered detailing Schiffler’s previous rides in Tibet, Japan or China, nor is it known if he completed his Latin American journey. |
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At the conclusion of the Second World War, German cavalryman, Walther Schmidt-Salzmann rode his Shagya Arabian stallion, Lapis, to safety across war-torn Russia and Eastern Europe. The intrepid Long Rider and his horse journeyed more than 6,000 kilometers through extreme winter conditions during which time Lapis was often reduced to eating straw from the roofs of thatched cottages in order to survive. | ||||||||
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It was a special time, an envelope of peace in a war-weary Europe. The 1930s presented a unique opportunity for three wandering Swiss horsemen to journey across a recovering continent, a chance to see the last remnants of nineteenth century village life before it was swept away forever by the horrors of the Second World War. Hans Schwarz was just the man to lead such a mounted expedition. A lifelong horseman, Schwarz conceived of the idea of riding from the mighty frozen Alps where he lived to the steamy plains of faraway Turkey. The resulting ride can only be described as idyllic. Along with two companions, the amiable Swiss Long Rider peeked at tiny Liechtenstein, crossed Austria, explored Romania, fled Albania, endured Yugoslavia, and finally reached Turkey, then rode back again! His book, Vier Pferde, Ein Hund und Drei Soldaten, is more than just a well-written Swiss adventure tale. Schwarz's trip, and the resulting book, both took on legendary status in the German-speaking world, and inspired three generations of Swiss Long Riders to take to the saddle, including legendary equestrian travelers, Hans Jürgen and Claudia Gottet, who rode from Arabia to Switzerland on their native Arab horses. | ||||||||
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Otto
Schwarz - rode a total of 48,000 kilometres literally all over the
world. The story of Otto Schwarz
reads like a mounted Odyssey. As the clouds of the Second World War gathered
over his native Switzerland, young Otto Schwarz was competing at Olympic
level in dressage. Forced by circumstances to don the uniform of a Swiss
cavalry officer, Otto patrolled the French-Swiss border on horseback for
nearly five years. Those mounted adventures gave the dashing Captain Schwarz
a taste for horse travel which redirected his equestrian life. Over the course of the next sixty years, Otto Schwarz went on to journey 48,000 kilometres (30,000 miles) on horseback across five continents, making him the most well-travelled Long Rider of the 20th century. The man literally rode in a host of places including Japan, Europe, Africa and North & South America. Click here to read Otto's obituary. The amazing story of Otto's many equestrian adventures is available for the first time in more than twenty years in this re-issued version of his classic book, Reisen mit dem Pferd In addition, the famous Long Rider offers his readers a detailed supplement on how to prepare and undertake an extended equestrian journey. This important book, (written in German), belongs on the bookshelf of every student of equestrian travel.
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Lillian
Schmidt - rode through the Rocky Mountains in
1984. |
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Ernest
Schoedsack was a film-maker, turned Long Rider, who joined Marguerite
Harrison and Merian C. Cooper, on their 1920s ride across Persia. On the
advice of Gertrude Bell, Schoedsack, Harrison and Cooper joined the
Bakhtairi nomads in 1923 at their winter grazing grounds near the Persian
Gulf. They rode alongside the tribe as it traversed the snow-covered Zagros
mountains. The resultant tale was made into a documentary film entitled
“Grass” and laid the groundwork for Schoedsack and Cooper’s later tale of
men and animals meeting in dangerous place, “King Kong.” |
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Quincy & Ella Scott It certainly wasn’t the fastest or easiest way to cross the United States as by 1907 the legendary Old West was fading into memory. Livery stables were failing, feed wasn’t always available and even the open-handed hospitality which had long been a blessing of the cowboy culture was being replaced by suspicion and calculation. So when a big-city newspaper in Seattle, Washington offered young Quincy Scott a chance to become their political cartoonist, the newly-wed husband made the right choice. He suggested that he and his young bride, Ella, celebrate their honeymoon by riding from their home in Minneapolis, Minnesota to the faraway city on horseback. Mind you, it was more than two-thousand miles away across roads that were often little more than muddy tracks. But what did that matter when you were young and in love? So it was that Ella and Quincy set off on a strangely snowy May morning. Underneath them were a couple of bargain-priced ponies, while their saddle bags didn’t hold much more than a frying pan and their dreams. Yet they never faltered, not even when the rivers flooded and the horses disappeared, or when they went hungry for another night. Regardless of a hundred unforeseen obstacles, nothing ever stopped them. Ever. Instead they made their historic ride, and after having finally reached distant Seattle, Quincy put all their memories down on paper. He recalled how Ella had shocked the denizens of the Old West by riding astride, all the while she wore a pair of men’s army breeches underneath her rugged homemade divided skirt. He recalled how they had seen old prospectors, rugged ranchers, the fading glory of the Old West. But most of all he enshrined one of the most lovely and romantic stories ever penned by a Long Rider, a story which though never published, was later resurrected and revived by their daughter, Dorothy, in a now rare book entitled, “Horseback Honeymoon.”
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Sergeant Robert Seney was one of the most significant, and inspirational, North American Long Riders of the late 20th century. A lifelong horseman, Seney’s mounted career stretched from the cavalry era to the age of the modern Long Riders. He was a member of the US cavalry when the Second World War broke out and spent the early part of the war helping to maintain a mounted guard along the Mexican border. Seney was also deployed to Italy and later served with the American Air Force. Upon his retirement from the armed services the former horse soldier worked in Olympic National Park as a professional packer. It was during this time that the cavalry sergeant discovered the road horse that was to take him upon so many retirement era adventures. According to Robert Seney’s son, Dick, his father’s horse, Trooper was a big cold blooded grey gelding. Mounted on the grey Trooper, Seney made a series of equestrian journeys through the United States, the effect of which inspired the next generation of American equestrian travellers to emulate this great and generous horseman. Together Seney and Trooper explored California’s back country trails and also rode the Pacific Crest Trail three times. In 1976 the mounted patriot set out to explore his homeland, a journey which saw Seney and Trooper making an extended journey to various parts of the United States. During that trip, and many subsequent adventures, nothing stopped the old cavalryman except truly bad weather. The sergeant turned Long Rider made six journeys between 1967 and 1980. The shortest journey was 2,000 miles and the longest was 9,000 miles. His combined travels through all 48 states exceeded 24,000 miles in the saddle. Sergeant Robert Seney, last of the American cavalry Long Riders, died in 2001 in Arizona, but not before leaving many stories of his travels. |
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