The Long Riders Guild Academic Foundation
The world’s first global hippological study

Equestrian Writers Wanted

If one wished to find an example of equestrian courage, and intellectual bravery, one need look no further than Marie Isabelle. This amazing horse trainer’s abilities were so extraordinary that the French government employed her in 1853 to teach their cavalry officers and horses using her ground-breaking new methods. The subsequent uproar from chauvinistic traditionalists ripped the French horse world apart.

Sadly, even though Marie Isabelle’s philosophy was, "Down with routine and false equestrian principles,” all traces of this talented equestrian trainer and philosopher have been lost.

With the help of the global equestrian community, The Long Riders’ Guild is hoping to bring about the end of a long intellectual drought by undertaking a global search for the equestrian wisdom of people like Marie Isabelle.

With a host of rare equestrian books and primary research documents on hand, and with the help of Long Riders residing in fifty countries, The Long Riders’ Guild Press wishes to work with writers willing to investigate a host of daring equestrian topics deemed too risky to be tackled by the main-stream publishing world. With more than two hundred books currently in print in eight languages, The Guild will be willing to work with authors to create new works based on hitherto neglected equestrian ideas, personalities, and practices.

These projects require creativity and emotional energy, the twin movers of intellectual enterprise, and a willingness to question the group canon.

The Guild, which has primary material on a number of topics of equestrian interest, would be interested in publishing in-depth articles or books about these neglected equestrian issues.

Here are a few examples.

Destination Gobi – Every war has its secrets and its spymasters. But could an American espionage outfit have allied itself with Mongols fighting the Japanese? That’s what the evidence suggests: during the 1940s a highly secretive US naval spy ring assisted the descendants of Genghis Khan by supplying them with US cavalry saddles. Sound far-fetched? Then ask yourself why in 1953 Hollywood made a film describes how American servicemen rode and fought alongside Mongolian nomads, thanks to the prior donation of nearly 100 used McClellan saddles, which had been authorized by US spies, then dropped in by American air transport. Was this film really "based on a true story"?

Soviet Salami – While most eyes were focused on the falling of the notorious Berlin Wall, an infamous, and largely undocumented, equestrian slaughter was quietly under way in eastern Europe. With the fall of the Soviet Union came an unprecedented equestrian opportunity. Because of its Soviet era dependency on equine transport and agricultural methods, eastern Europe was home to millions of horses. Yet with the withdrawal of Russian money and military might, farmers in countries like Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia were cash-strapped and horse wealthy. So, according to confidential Long Rider sources, Mafia-connected buyers from Italy were able to purchase horses for pennies on the pound, transport them to abattoirs via cruel trucking methods, and turn an impressive culinary profit. The resultant equinocide was responsible for the loss of millions of horses and the believed extinction of at least one breed, the Croatian Marsh Horse.

A Tolerance for Cruelty – An equestrian philosopher once wrote, “If God gave us a larger brain to outwit the horse, He also gave us a sense of morality to guide us in how we treat them.” While it is well known how the 19^th century horse world eventually outlawed the practices of docking horses’ tails for appearance sake, or slitting their nostrils to supposedly improve their breathing, a number of modern equine practices, sports and events are being perpetrated with no regard for the immense equine cruelty involved in their practice. The most notorious North American example is the Omak Stampede, whereby Indian riders force their horses to plunge off a cliff at night time, stumble down a steep hill in the dark, swim across a river, and, if they survive, race on to a nearby rodeo arena where the winner claims a cash prize. Though routinely denounced because of the number of horses who die in this brief event, those with a financial stake in perpetrating this wretched event claim it is based on an Native American equestrian tradition. The Long Riders’ Guild has research material indicating that this barbaric race was actually conceived by a Caucasian rodeo promoter in the early 1930s.

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