Interview with Dave Nicholson, DVM, famed endurance rider

Salve,

a quick post on something very interesting and enjoyable, while educational with plenty of history to all who like horses, Arabians, endurance riding and horse stories etc:

The Arabian Horse World magazine has made available an interview with famous endurance rider, horseman and author, Dave Nicholson,DVM (doctor of veterinary medicine) done 20 years ago. Amongst others he participated in the Great American Horse Race of 1976 (interesting article here) and the Pony Express Ride of 1979, and many Tevis Cup rides.
enjoy
Bellow a postcard of the Antoniny Stud Farm in Polish Borderlands showing Arabian mares at Pasture. This famous stud farm and its horses were destroyed by the Bolshevik Revolutionaries - here Polish poem titled the  ''Śmierc Ibrahima'' ('Death of Ibrahim') commemorating this disaster, from the webpage of Bask stud at Albigowa.

Cavaliere d'Arpino's horses

Salve,
 as I imagine most of the people educated in the Western Civilisation history are somewhat interested in the Greek and Roman mythology and legendary history, I am also passionate about them, and my passion has been sustained and  'fuelled'  by more than 2,500 years of Western-influenced art.

I had been perusing flicker and I found some great photos of a Mannerist murals depicting Roman legendary history, amongst them the battle between the Horatii and Curiatii.
The below version of the battle is by Helen A. Guerber ( The Story of Romans, 1870)
''Romans and Albans had all assembled to view the battle between their champions, and were eagerly awaiting the struggle which was to decide their fate. They had agreed that the nation which won should rule over the one which was worsted in the fight that was about to begin.
Encouraged to do their best by the feeling that so much depended upon their valor, the Horatii and Curiatii met. The Romans and Albans, stationed on either side, watched the encounter with breathless interest and in anxious silence.
The six young men were equally brave and well trained, but before long two of the Horatii fell, never to rise again. Only one of the Roman champions was left to uphold their cause; but he was quite unhurt, while all three of his enemies had received severe wounds.
The Curiatii were still able to fight, however, and all three turned their attention to the last Horatius. They hoped to dispatch him quickly, so as to secure the victory for Alba before the loss of blood made them too weak to fight.
The Roman champion knew that he would not be able to keep these three foes at bay, and he noticed how eager they were to bring the battle to a speedy close. To prevent that, he made up his mind to separate them, if possible, in order to fight them one by one.
He therefore made believe to run away, and was followed, as quickly as their strength allowed, by the Curiatii, who taunted him for his cowardice, and bade him stand and fight. The three wounded men ran on, as fast as they could, and were soon some distance apart; for the one whose wounds were slightest had soon left the others behind.
Horatius turned his head, saw that his enemies were now too far apart to help one another, and suddenly rushed back to attack them. A short, sharp encounter took place, and the first of the Curiatii fell, just as one of his brothers came to help him.
To kill this second foe, weakened as he was by the loss of blood and by the efforts he had made to hurry, was but the work of a moment. The second Qiriatius sank beneath his enemy's sword just as the last of the Alban brothers appeared beside him. With the courage of despair, this Curiatius tried to strike a blow for his country; but he too fell, leaving the victory to Horatius, the sole survivor among the six brave warriors who had begun the fight.
The Romans had seen two of their champions fall, and the third take refuge in what seemed to be cowardly flight; and they fancied that their honor and liberty were both lost. Imagine their joy, therefore, when they saw Horatius turn, kill one enemy after another, and remain victor on the field! Shout after shout rent the air, and the Romans were almost beside themselves with pride and gladness when the Alban king came over and publicly said that he and his people would obey Rome.
Leaving the Albans to bury their dead and bewail the loss of their liberty, the Romans led their young champion back to the city, with every sign of approval and joy. Compliments and praise were showered upon the young man, who, in token of victory, had put on the embroidered mantle of one of his foes.
Every one received him joyfully as he entered the city, —every one except his sister Camilla. When she saw the mantle which she had woven and embroidered for her betrothed, she burst into tears. In her sorrow she could not hold her tongue, and bitterly reproached her brother for killing her lover.
Horatius, angry at being thus reproved, roughly bade Camilla dry her tears, and told her she was not worthy of being a Roman, since she welcomed her country's triumph with tears. As she kept on crying, after this harsh reproof, Horatius suddenly raised his hand and struck her a deadly blow with the same sword which had taken her lover's life.
The sight of this heartless murder made the Romans so angry that they wanted to put the young man to death, in spite of the service he had just rendered his country. But his aged father implored them to spare his life. He said that two of his sons were lying on the battlefield, where they had given their lives for Rome; that his lovely daughter Camilla was no more; and that the people ought to leave his only remaining child as a prop for his old age.

When Tullus Hostilius heard this pitiful request, he promised to forgive Horatius upon condition that he would lead the Roman army to Alba, and raze the walls of that ancient city, as had been agreed. The Albans were then brought to Rome, and settled at the foot of the Caelian hill, one of the seven heights of the city.''
 
The painting of Horatii and other frescoes from which the horses are shown are located at the Capitoline Museum in Roma (Rome), Italy. They were painted by then famous Italian painter Giuseppe Cesari known as Cavalier d'Arpino.
And here are the horses or rather war horses created/imagined by the brushes of Cavaliere d'Arpino and, presumably, his atelier.
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The photos above are by mharrsch under the creative commons licence
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Sassanian Sketches...

Salve,
 some time ago I did many sketches of the Sassanid horse warriors based on my friend Patryk Skupniewicz research into their arms and armour, and, I should add, my own observations of various Sassanian monuments and  of other researchers' work. Here one of them, of a royal warrior

Lately I did some drawings related to the horse bridles, esepcially the early curb-bits,psalion snaffle bits, cavessons and muzzle-cavesson 'mixes' from the Sassanian Period - III through VII century A.D.
First a sketch of a horse armour with a 'horned saddle' that came to Europe from Central Asia some time during late II century B.C. and stayed in use until the later Antiquity.

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Various cavessons and muzzles of bronze

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a curb-bit and horse mask or chamfron

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Researching XVII century military wagons

Salve amici mei,
.. as I have been working on a project involving horse wagons and carriages for yet another book on XVII century hussaria,  I did a quick  sketch in Art Pen and watercolour of a Kozak standard bearer via an Orientalist painting by Józef Brandt's Powrót Zwycięzców (Victors' Return), it appears to be a Sich Kozak - interestingly at this time our Kozaks (Zaporozhian Cossacks) were not noted horsemen, fighting as fine infantry and marines (on their swift boats raiding Ottoman Turks all the way in their capital, Istanbul), with some weak light cavalry. Their strength laid in skilful use of early muskets, especially early versions of flintlock as 'doglock' or 'snaphance,' and in use of the "tabor" (wagon train (Wagenburg)) for defence - following the offensive tactics of Old Polish armies 'tabor' that in turn followed Czech Hussites that had re-invented the tabor and used it successfully during their battles with German knightly lancers during the 1420-30s. After the Bohemian mercenaries exported their tactics all over Europe, it was the Central and Eastern European armies and Ottoman Turkish armies became more or less skilful in its use.

At this moment I am after the construction of XVII century wagons and carriages, and I have been using both few iconographic sources eg

...and our Polish painters of the realist school led by aforementioned maestro Józef Brandt and  his contemporary maestro Juliusz Kossak.
Especially in the paintings of 'pan' (sir or master)Brandt these wagons can be see quite clearly. And at the same time we can enjoy these wonderful paintings by pan Brandt, also showing the colourful world of Old Commonwealth.

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Giants of long distance horse travel 1889-2004

Salve,
I have been dormant most of this winter and it looks as the spring may come to this corner of the Great Plains soon. I did very little riding past 2 months, and have been dreaming about some long distance riding in the Rocky Mountains - the most I have don is 30 miles in saddle...
So reading about riders of the past I decided to start my retunr to this blog with some recollections on men,woman and horses that made some of the longest rides in last 120 years.

First could come travellers of Asia, the largest land mass on this Earth.
Allow me to start with a fine rider, gentleman and military man

Kozak officer Dmitri  Peshkov (Дмитрий Пешков), member of Amur Cossack Voisko/Host, who crossed Imperial Russia  astride a grey horse (photo above) named Serko (Серко) - a Manchurian horse -  notabene about this famous ride Russians made a movie in 2006. 
Dmitri and Serko rode "five thousand five hundred miles in one hundred and ninety-three days" (or 9000km in 193 days) from Blagoveshchensk on the Amur River in Siberia to Saint Petersburg on the Baltic Sea during the late 1889 to May 1890. Gospodin Dmitiri was decorated by the Tsar with an order of St.Anna and a leave from his military duty, and he then travelled to Palestine to visit the Holy Land. He fought in Boxer Rebellion, being a member of invading Russian army and later in Russo-Japanese war. Retired in 1908 with a rank of colonel of the Russian army, for his military service he was awarded not only plenty of Russian Imperial orders, but also Italian and French. Manchurian grey Serko died in Saint Petersburg and was buried there and his burial still exists.
There is a Russian book published in 2001 describing his adventures based on documents etc - Путешествие амурского казака Дмитрия Пешкова от Благовещенска до Петербурга. Here an article in Russian...


Next a Japanese officer and scion of a samurai family,
Fukushima Yasumasa, who from Berlin, German Empire,  started on horse ''Gaisen,'' left him in Moscow due to sickness, bought Russian horse ''Ural''(that bit him repeatedly) and in the Altai Mountains(Kazakhstan) bought two Kazakh horses that took him to Russian port city Vladivostok, and eventually these horses went to Japan - from February 1892 to June 1893, some 488 days.

 ''MAJOR YASUMASA FUKUSHIMA, military attaché of the Japanese Legation in Berlin, has started on one of the longest rides on record. He proposes to travel on horseback to Tokyo, a distance estimated at ten thousand miles, exclusive of waterways, on which he will have to take to a boat. He expects to ride six days in the week, and to make from thirty to thirty-five miles a day. His journey will last about fifteen months, and will subject him to extremes of heat and cold and to the most varying conditions. He weighs one hundred and fifty-four pounds, and will carry with him fifty-eight pounds of luggage.'' (the Illustrated American, vol.10, 1892)

 Fukushima continued his service in the Japanese Army (became a general) and wrote a book about his travel, in Japanese, titled ''A travel in Central and Southern Asia''

Next three American Continents travellers who used famous Argentinian horse breed - the criollo - to accomplish their tasks:
 most famous Aimé Tschiffely , in 1926-29 he rode from Buenos Aires, Argentina to NYC on two criollo horses Mancha and Gato, later wrote a book (and many others) about his ride, published in English under the title "Tschiffely's ride; ten thousand miles in the saddle from Southern Cross to pole star." by Simon in 1933.

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...and finally completely unknown and unfortunately passed away, the giant of horse long distance travel, Polish teacher and breeder Tadeusz Kotwicki who between 1995-97/98  rode from the end of Patagonia  in Argentina, along the Pacific side of South America to Kansas, US. Pan Tadeusz had ridden in Asia prior to his Americas' adventure, in 1992 he rode a Akhla-Teke mare from Jambyl Province, Kazakhstan to Moscow, Russia, some some 4000km in 120 days. He was also a breeder of Akhal-Teke horses in Poland.
The article below, from Polish daily, "Głos Pomorza" (Voice of Pomerania) from January 1997, tells us about the moment in his voyage when he reached Bogota, Colombia,  that Pan Tadeusz was going to ride all the way to the Bering Straits, yet from the article given in the link (http://boskawola.blogspot.com/2012/03/wspomnienie-tadeusza-kotwickiego-28.html ), we learn that he finished his epic journey in Kansas. I hope to learn more about his voyage from article the author of the blog will publish in Polish magazine "Koński Targ" (Horse Market).

Returning to Pan Tadeusz ride, from the newspaper article we learn that he rode a 142cm-at-withers tall grey criollo mare, bought in Argentinian Province of Santa Cruz, in 'Stag River' horse stud. 6 years old grey mare named ''Kropka'' (''Dot'') was gentled and trained by pan Tadeusz, who had brought his own saddle from Poland for this trip; during his trip rode her for 2-3 hours and walked the same distance, making daily 40-50km a day. During his passage through Peru, he was attacked by the Indian villagers, who believing a fold tale about a white man on a white(grey) horse eating children, beat him and he was only saved by a public official travelling with journalists.

well, until  the next time
ps
 by the way the so called Extreme Mustang Makeover finished in September last year and look at the winner of the Supreme Class
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16th of June 2012, I am removing this fragment from the main body of the post - 
South African Marianne du Toit, who allegedly followed the footsteps/hoofsteps of Tschiffely on two criollo horses, from  2002-04, claimed she had ridden from Buenos Aires to NYC  and actually later wrote a book,  Crying with Cockroaches, about her claims.

- due to the substantive and  material claims against this story.