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Historical Long Riders
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The English Long Rider, Edward Mitford, rode 7,000 miles from Eastern Europe to India in 1839. His extraordinary journey began with his companion and fellow Englishman, Austen Henry Layard. However, when Layard chose to stay and live with the Bakhtari nomads of Persia, Mitford rode on alone, eventually reaching Ceylon after many adventures in Afghanistan and Scinde. |
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In the mid-nineteenth century German-born
Heinrich Möllhausen made four extensive journeys across the
still unexplored frontier of North America. He made journeys with two
federal exploring parties and then accompanied a German prince onto
the prairies for a third time. In the fall of 1857 Möllhausen explored
the Colorado river and the Grand Canyon. When that portion of his
journey was completed, the German Long Rider set out to ride from
eastern Arizona to Fort Leavenworth via the Santa Fe trail. Upon his
return to Germany, Möllhausen wrote an account of this historic
journey. That story, translated for the first time into English, may
be viewed here:
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Henri Moser – ( 1844 – 1923 ) The son of a Swiss watch maker, settled in St. Petersburg, Russia, was given permission to undertake an unprecedented equestrian exploration across Central Asia. Setting off in 1882, the young watch-maker turned equestrian explorer left St. Petersburg bound for Tashkent. He then rode on to Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, made his way to Tehran, crossed the Caucasus mountains and finally emerged at Istanbul in 1883. |
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Virl Norton – (1916 – 1995) In addition to completing the grueling Tevis Cup endurance ride eight times, Virl won the Great American Horse Race, a trans-continental endurance ride which stretched from New York to California. Virl became a Long Rider when, in the winter of 1979 he set out to ride a thousand miles from Effingham, Illinois to Washington D.C. Though he endured record cold temperatures, Virl completed his journey when he rode up to the White House to see President Jimmy Carter. For more information about Virl, please click here. |
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Hieronymous Münzer - Born in Germany in 1437, he was a humanist scholar, physician and Town Councillor in Nüremberg. In 1494 he and three friends embarked on a journey, on horseback, to visit the Iberian Peninsular. Münzer authored one of the earliest printed maps of Europe and in 1493 he wrote to the Portuguese King arguing that the eastern coast of Asia could be reached from the Atlantic coasts of Europe and Africa within a few days. He poured scorn on "inexperienced" people who tried to prove that the Ocean covered three quarters of the world. (Oh dear!) The mistaken Long Rider died in 1508. |
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Frederick Law Olmstead - father of American landscape architecture and the designer of New York's Central Park. He rode across Texas and the American South-West in 1857. |
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Famed soldier of fortune Tex O’Reilly was also a noted Long Rider. Having fought around the world, including the jungles of the Philippines, alongside Pancho Villa in Mexico and a stint leading the Spanish Foreign Legion, O’Reilly was no stranger to hardship. So it comes as no surprise to learn that he volunteered to ride from San Antonio, Texas to Chicago, Illinois bearing a message from the Governor of Texas to President Taft. “I had a wonderful time on that 1,700 mile ride. When I reached Chicago I learned President Taft was at a baseball game. So I rode my horse onto the diamond and dashed up to him. The amazing thing was he recognized me, remembering me from the days when I commanded his bodyguard in the Philippines.” |
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Prince Henri d'Orléans. An heir to the throne of France, a notorious duelist, a big game hunter, an acclaimed author, and handsome to boot, Prince Henri d'Orléans was a dashing French Long Rider whose ride across Asia in 1889 remains the stuff of legend. Though born with an ancestral claim to the French crown, the dashing aristocrat embraced democracy in its place. Denied a role in the military because of his nobility, the Prince succumbed instead to the call to adventure by volunteering to accompany the rugged French Long Rider, Gabriel Bonvalot, on that explorer's journey from Paris to Hanoi, via the frozen wastes of Siberia, the burning Takla Makan desert and the forbidding Himalayan Mountains. They made an equestrian odd couple, the rough, good-natured, older Bonvalot and the twenty-five-year-old princely cub in search of an exciting quest. Yet together they overcame hardships and accomplished one of the greatest equestrian journeys in human history. One interesting point about their journey has just been discovered. Upon leaving Tibet, the French Long Riders used a remote and carefully guarded route known as "The Little Tea Road" which led them into China. In a strange twist of fate, the modern equestrian traveller, Daniel Robinson, journeyed into Tibet in 2006 via a route known as The Teat Horse Trail. Consequently, The Guild is attempting to verify if Robinson's road matched the one used by Prince Henri and Bonvalot. Upon the completion of their record-making ride, Prince Henri and his mentor returned to Europe where they were both awarded various honours. Prince Henri was singled out for a Gold Medal by England's Royal Geographical Society. Yet despite the acclaim, the Prince was soon involved in other explorations. This included hunting tigers in India, exploring Madascar, venturing deep inside Abyssinia and discovering the headwaters of the remove Irawaddy river. When he wasn't exploring, the Prince engaged in a number of swordfights with Italian nobles, etc. (as one does). Sadly, the suave Long Rider died as he had lived, while travelling. During a journey around the world, Prince Henri was stricken by illness and died soon afterwards in Saigon on August 9, 1901. He was thirty-four years old, and though there was talk that a statue was to be erected in his honour in Cochin, The Long Riders' Guild has been unable to confirm if this occurred. |
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Jocham Östrup was the young Swedish student who, having set out to study Arabian culture and history, decided that the best way to discover both was by riding an Arabian stallion 4,500 kilometers through Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor. His adventurous journey was undertaken between 1891-93 and is recounted in his excellent bookVäxlande Horisont. |
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The Overland Westerners: George and Charlie Beck, Jay Ransom and Raymond Rayne - rode to all 48 state capitals in the USA, between 1912 and 1915. |
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