|
| |
The Long Riders' Guild
Historical Long Riders
 |
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. |
 |
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. |
 |
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. |
 |
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. |
|

|
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.
 |
Lillian
Schmidt - rode through the Rocky Mountains in
1984. |
 |
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.” |

|
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.” |
 |
Robert Seney - made six Long Rides in
North America between the years 1967 and 1980. These rides varied in
length from 2,000 to 9,000 miles and covered all 48 lower States. |
|
Click
here to go to next page
Back to Main Historical Page
Home
Top
|