The Long Riders' Guild

What is the Equestrian Travel Timeline?

This is the world’s first attempt at documenting the history of equestrian exploration and long distance horse travel. It incorporates every known Long Rider, starting with the legendary journey of Celia Fiennes in 1697, to the most recently recorded trip of Katherine Boone in 2001.  In its entirety The Equestrian Travel Timeline encompasses nearly 300 Long Riders and provides information on more than 822,000 documented miles travelled by them in the saddle.

We hope the Equestrian Travel Timeline will serve as the equivalent of discovering the Rosetta Stone of equestrian exploration? Hopefully the disclosure of this long lost information will serve as an impetus for future research into this sadly overlooked area of the equestrian experience.

In keeping with the philosophy of The Long Riders’ Guild, The Equestrian Travel Timeline includes all known Long Riders regardless of their nationality, race, creed or gender – or breed of horse ridden.

It took the founder of The Long Riders’ Guild, CuChullaine O’Reilly, more than twenty years to compile The Equestrian Travel Timeline from a worldwide network of sources.  It remains his intellectual property, and his permission is required to broadcast or duplicate it.

How does the Equestrian Travel Timeline work?

This is not an effort to list daily journeys taken on horseback prior to the advent of motorized travel. This is instead a list of men and women who specifically set out to travel on horseback.  

Every effort has been made to accurately list each Long Rider chronologically, followed by a short biography of the trip which includes the year travelled, as well as all known information on the horses that were ridden.

Most of the journeys listed covered a minimum of 1,000 miles in the saddle. The only exceptions are those equestrian trips made before the year 2000 that resulted in a book being written about that journey. These books helped keep alive the spirit of equestrian travel and are therefore considered of historical importance.

Those rides listed that incorporate question marks in regards to mileage are still being researched. They include Long Riders who are "Missing In Action." Any information you can provide regarding the current whereabouts, or historical activities, of these travellers will be of immediate value to the worldwide equestrian community.

With the advent of the 21^st century only those equestrian trips covering more than 1,000 continuous miles in the saddle will now be accepted, regardless of whether or not a book is written.   

If you, or anyone you know, qualifies as a Long Rider, please contact us.

Click here to see the Equestrian Travel Timeline

NOTE:  These are unavoidably large documents, so please be patient while they load!

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The Long Riders' Guild -

A groundbreaking source of information regarding our collective equestrian past!