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The World Ride |
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(Click on map to enlarge it.) The World Ride starts in Paris where modern equestrian travel began in 1889 when Cossack Officer Mikhail Asseyev rode from Kiev to the newly-built Eiffel Tower. Announcing to his surprised fellow officers that they had all lost their manliness, Asseyev took his mare and a horse chosen at random from the remounts. Having averaged an astonishing 50 miles a day, they not only arrived safely in Paris, but the horses were in such superb condition that the French Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals awarded the Cossack a gold medal. Thus the Eiffel Tower is the heart of modern equestrian travel and will serve as the beacon for the World Ride's start and finish. CuChullaine and Basha then head east through Germany and Austria and will first encounter the Steppes in Hungary. From there they will continue east through the Ukraine, staying on the Equestrian Equator, with a short journey south through Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan, which is known as "The land of horses and free riders." They will then head north-west to Siberia, where they will travel along the "Road of Bones." This notorious trail through the Siberian taiga was built by Russian political prisoners, thousands of whom died and whose bones became part of the road. From Russia they will fly to Canada and ride across that horse-friendly country, along part of its 13,000 mile Trans-Canadian Trail. From Canada, they take to the air again and fly to Scotland and will then ride down the Pennines to the South of England and thus back to Paris. The 12,000 mile journey is expected to last two years. |
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