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Historical Long Riders
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F. A. Talbot - rode through the North West Passage of the Canadian Rockies in 1901. |
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Richard "Diamond Dick" Tanner - rode his mare Gyp from Lincoln, Nebraska to New York City and back in 1893. |
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Albert Terhune - rode through Syria and the Middle East in 1894. Terhune wrote, "I have heard among bards of the desert many songs in praise of love or horses, that have far more true poetry and vigour than all the magazine poems which purport to be Arabic translations." |
| No picture available | Maria "Nelly" Ternan - England's first female foreign correspondent, rode into the mountains of Algeria in search of lions in 1881. |
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Charles Thurlow Craig - rode in Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and the Gran Chaco jungle during the early 1920s. |
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Count Ilia Tolstoy - rode from India to China across Tibet. To read his exciting story about this dangerous and diplomatic journey, please click here. |
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Count Leo Tolstoy - was so passionate about horses that his friend and fellow author, Ivan Turgenev, accused him of having been a horse in his previous life! The famous author of War and Peace rode frequently right up to his death. The photograph on the left shows him in the saddle just before his 80th birthday. |
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Few people recall today that Germany and Afghanistan were once close friends, allied in their mutual distrust of the then still-powerful British Empire. Within the space of a few years the British had beaten the Germans on the battlefields of the First World War. A few years later these same English victors used their military machine, complete with state-of-the-art airplanes based in India, to bomb their Afghan neighbours into political submission. It was during the early 1920s, while both Germany and Afghanistan were thus licking their wounds and regaining their political power, that the German geologist Emile Trinkler made his legendary trip across the forbidden kingdom of Afghanistan. The Afghan king had shut his borders to the majority of outsiders, which further heightened the kingdom’s already famous isolation. Yet having arrived at the Afghan border via Russian Turkestan, Trinkler wasn’t about to go back. He mounted a local horse and rode off across the vast interior of that still-beautiful country. Through the Heart of Afghanistan describes his journey in a Central Asian world now passed into memory. Trinkler saw Afghanistan as she still was, asleep and dreaming in the last stages of her long medieval slumber. |
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No one knew they were looking at a hero and his two horses. Instead the local press derided him as "a lunatic proposing to ride overland to New York." The time was 1925. The place, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Standing on the threshold of equestrian travel history was a young Swiss Long Rider named Aimé Tschiffely. Next to him were his two faithful Criollo horses, Mancha and Gato. Their collective goal was to ride more than ten thousand miles from Buenos Aires to New York. No one had ever attempted such a journey. Everyone thought Tschiffely was mad. Looking back on what would become the most famous equestrian journey of the modern age, it is difficult to believe that anyone doubted the abilities of the legendary Long Rider and his hardy horses. Yet the school teacher who became an equestrian explorer had been told he was too inexperienced, his horses too old, and the journey too difficult. What Aimé Tschiffely was told was wrong. This is the story of the greatest equestrian epic of the twentieth century, a journey that came about because a man and his horses refused to quit - ever! During the course of their travels Tschiffely, Mancha and Gato crossed deadly deserts, passed through jungles, traversed sky-high mountain passes - and rode on. They were assailed by vampire bats, mistaken for gods and navigated the Panama Canal - but rode on.
Nothing stopped them. No one
since has rivalled their accomplishments. |
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Henry Tudor - set off from New York City in 1879 determined to ride to Punta Arenas, Patagonia. The Guild can find no information to confirm he arrived at his far-off goal. |
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Cowboy movie star, Long Rider, show judge and horseman supreme, all of these titles apply to Joe Vanorio, the equestrian traveller who rode from New York to California in 1928. Upon reaching the bright lights of Hollywood, the dashing young horseman was employed as Tom Mix’s stunt double. He went on to work with Gary Cooper and other western film stars. During his time as in Hollywood, Joe introduced the concept of training horses to drop upon command with hand signals and in doing so did away with cruel use of the trip wire. Upon returning to his home in New York state, Joe used his equestrian talents to become one of the founders of the Professional Horseman’s Association. A revered teacher and trainer, Joe pioneered the concept of equestrian forums and organized an effort to allow state park lands to be used for bridle ways. |
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A. C. Veatch FRGS - rode from Quito, Ecuador to Bogata, Columbia, via the Andes Mountains in 1913. |
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Harry La Verne - rode from San Francisco to Galveston, Texas, in 1894. |
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Sir Hanns Vischer (born in Basel, Switzerland in 1876, died 1945) was a Missionary, an official in the British Colonial service and African explorer. Before Vischer obtained British citizenship, he was on his way to becoming a Missionary in Hausaland; as a British citizen he could work for the Colonial Administrative Service and he developed an educational system which ensured that the local cultural specialities were included. Following the success of this educational system in northern Nigeria, Vischer was knighted. The Swiss-born Briton became famous for crossing the Sahara, from north to south, on horseback in 1906. The journey started in Tripoli, Tunisia and ended at Lake Chad. For this he had to get permission from England to be allowed to make the return journey to his post as administrator in Kukawa. A second journey in the opposite direction was refused by his superior, W. P. Hewby. He published the book about his journey in 1910, entitled Across the Sahara. Vischer’s journey inspired John Hare to undertake a camel expedition in 2001, which journey went in the opposite direction. |
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