It is not certain that a trotting speed of twenty miles an hour has ever been attained, but the distance has been done in six seconds over that time. Phenomenon, a mare belonging to Sir Edward Astley, when twelve years old, trotted seventeen miles in fifty-six minutes, and performed the same distance a month afterwards in less than fifty-three minutes; that is to say, at the rate of more than twenty-one and a half miles per hour. The American horses are celebrated for their trotting. In general they are not ridden, but driven, and that in a peculiar manner. The driver leans back in his seat and keeps up a steady pull on the reins; as long as this continues the horse runs, but stops the moment the reins are relaxed. Tom Thumb, a celebrated American horse belonging to Mr. Osbaldeston, was matched in 1829 to perform the wonderful feat of trotting a hundred miles in harness in ten and a half successive hours. The vehicle did not weigh more than one hundred pounds, nor the driver more than ten stone three pounds. The gallant little horse, which was but fourteen hands high, completed the task in ten hours and seven minutes; twenty-three minutes within the allotted time, without being in the smallest degree distressed.
It used to be thought that no horse could in fair walking contend with a man, who was a first-rate pedestrian; but the opinion was refuted by the performance of a hackney named Sloven, that, in 1791, beat a celebrated pedestrian by walking twenty miles in three hours and forty-one minutes. Two years afterwards the same animal walked twenty-two miles in three hours and fifty-two minutes.
The preceding statements are sufficient to display the absolute powers of the horse; let us now consider what can be done by horse and man. Wonderful things are related of the Tartar couriers, who used to ride from one end of the Turkish empire to the other in an incredibly short space of time, with a pacha’s head dangling at their saddle bow; but we have had European couriers whose feats were not less astonishing and better authenticated. In the days when as yet railroads were not, government expresses that required great dispatch used to be carried by men on horseback, though ordinary messengers usually travelled in carriages. Relays of horses were kept ready for the courier all along the road; a postilion accompanied him from station to station, and he continued his journey day and night without halting except to take a fresh horse. He ate and drank in the saddle, slept in the saddle, leaning forward on a cushion strapped to the high-peaked pummel, and was lifted, saddle and all, from the back of one horse to another’s; for the attempt to mount and dismount, after his heated limbs had been long fixed in one posture, would have speedily disabled him. The postilion who galloped beside him looked to his safety when he slept, and took charge of his horse. In this way couriers with despatches for London from Vienna, have ridden from the latter capital to Calais without stopping, the distance being about nine hundred miles.
In 1763, a Mr. Shafto won a match which was to provide a person who should ride one hundred miles a day, on any one horse each day, for twenty-nine days together, and to have any number of horses not exceeding twenty-nine. The jockey accomplished the task with fourteen horses, and on one day rode one hundred and sixty miles on account of the tiring of his first horse. The celebrated Lafayette rode in August, 1778, from Rhode Island to Boston, a distance of nearly seventy miles in seven hours, and returned in six hours and half.
One of the most extraordinary feats in the way of express riding performed in modern times was that of a boy of fifteen, Frederick Tyler, who conveyed, from Montgomery to Mobile, the news of the two days’ battle, fought between the armies of the United States and Mexico in the summer of 1846. The distance, one hundred and ninety miles, was accomplished in thirteen hours; and during the entire night the boy caught and saddled his horses, none of which were in readiness, as he was not looked for by those who had the horses in charge.
A bet against time was won in July, 1840, by an Arab horse at Bungalore, in the presidency of Madras, to run four hundred miles in four consecutive days. Mr. Frazer relates, in his “Tartar Journeys,” a still more striking instance of the speed and bottom of the Arab: a horse of that breed carried him from Shiraz to Teheran, five hundred and twenty-two miles in six days, remained three at rest, went back in five days, remained nine at Shiraz, and returned again to Teheran in seven days. Another high-blooded Arabian carried Mr. Frazer from Teheran to Koom, eighty-four miles, in about ten hours. A courier, whom Major Keppel fell in with between Kermanshaw and Hamadan, places one hundred and twenty miles distant from each other, performed that journey, over a rugged mountainous tract, in little more than twenty-four hours; and the next morning set off on the same horse for Teheran, two hundred miles further, expecting to reach it on the second day.
It is, of course, among the wild races inhabiting vast level tracts, such as are suitable to the habits and constitution of the horse, that the power of holding out long in the saddle is most assiduously and most generally cultivated. There are tribes and nations who may be said to spend the greater part of their lives on horseback:—the Kirghis, for instance, in Central Asia; the Gauchos, or countryfolk of European descent, who inhabit the immense Pampas, or plains of South America; and, in a still higher degree, the Indians of the same regions. The Pampas, though fertile, are totally uncultivated, and yield the scattered inhabitants no other nourishment than water, and the flesh of the unappropriated herds of cattle and horses, that roam over them in countless multitudes. Their hardy inhabitants are thus portrayed by Sir Francis Head:—
“The life of the Gaucho is very interesting. Born in the rude hut, the infant receives little attention, but is left to swing from the roof in a bullock’s hide, the corners of which are drawn towards each other by four strips of hide. In the first year of his life he crawls about without clothes, and I have more than once seen a mother give a child of this age a sharp knife, a foot long, to play with. As soon as he walks his infantine amusements are those which prepare him for the occupations of his future life: with a lasso made of twine he tries to catch little birds or the dogs as they walk in and out of the hut. By the time he is four years old he is on horseback, and immediately becomes useful by assisting to drive the cattle into the corral. The manner in which these children ride is quite extraordinary: if a horse tries to escape from the flock which are driven towards the corral , I have frequently seen a child pursue him, overtake him, and then bring him back, flogging him the whole way; in vain the creature tries to dodge and escape from him, for the child turns with him, and always keeps close to him; and it is a curious fact, which I have often observed, that a mounted horse is always able to overtake a loose one.
“His amusements and his occupations soon become more manly. Careless of the biscacheros (the holes of an animal called the biscacho, which undermine the plains, and which are very dangerous) he gallops after the ostrich, the gáma, the puma, and the jaguar; his catches them with his balls; and with his lasso he daily assists in catching the wild cattle and dragging than to the hut, either for slaughter or to be milked. He breaks in the young horses, and in these occupations is often away from his hut many days, changing his horse as soon as the animal is tired, and sleeping on the ground. As his constant food is beef and water, his constitution is so strong that he is able to endure great fatigue; and the distances he will ride, and the number of hours he will remain on horseback, would hardly be credited. The unrestrained freedom of such a life he fully appreciates; and, unacquainted with subjection of any sort, his mind is often inspired with sentiments of liberty which are as noble as they are harmless, although they of course partake of the wild habits of his life. Vain is the endeavour to explain to him the luxuries and blessings of a more civilized life; his ideas are, that the noblest effort of man is to raise himself off the ground and ride instead of walk; that no rich garments or variety of food can atone for the want of a horse; and that the print of the human foot on the ground is the symbol of uncivilization.
“The character of the Gaucho is often very estimable, he is always hospitable; at his hut the traveller is sure to find a friendly welcome, and he will often be received with a natural dignity of manner which is very remarkable, and which he scarcely expects to meet with in such a miserable looking hovel. On my entering the hut, the Gaucho has constantly risen to offer me his seat, which I have declined, and many compliments and bows have passed, until I have accepted his offer,—the skeleton of a horse’s head. It is curious to see them invariably take off their hats to each other as they enter a room which has no window, a bullock’s hide for a door, and but little roof.”