To: Long Riders and Friends of the Guild
From: CuChullaine O'Reilly
Subject: World Ride Website

Dear Long Riders and Friends of The Guild,

After nearly nine years of round the clock labour, the Long Riders' Guild, Long Riders' Guild Press and Long Riders' Guild Academic Foundation are functioning smoothly and are stronger than ever - thanks to your collective effort and support.

Thus, with those vital issues under control, Basha and I have of late devoted ourselves to organizing our own delayed equestrian journey around the globe. To mark the beginning of this new effort, earlier today we launched the new World Ride website - http://www.theworldride.org

Though this message will be shared among the most extraordinary living equestrian explorers, it may surprise many of you to consider this astonishing fact.

Twelve men have walked on the moon, yet no human being has ever ridden around the Earth !

We are therefore setting off on the first continuous, around-the-world equestrian expedition. The journey will cover 12,000 miles, cross eleven countries, last two years and be the most highly developed diplomatic and scientific equestrian mission ever undertaken.

Yet the World Ride represents not a multi-billion dollar expansion into outer space but the affordable exploration of ourselves. During the journey we will be attempting to:

a) make the first equestrian journey around the Earth

b) map the route using GPS technology so as to allow others to follow in our horses' hoofprints;

c) create a scholastic internet network which encourages nine to twelve year old children to study geography, while interacting with the World Ride and each other's classrooms;

d) collect hair samples from every known horse breed so as to create the first complete equine DNA chain;

e) promote the unity of mankind via our species' ancient link with the horse.

While designed to create the paramount equestrian trail by taking us through Europe, Central Asia, Siberia and North America, we shall be riding along the Equestrian Equator, that invisible line across which history flowed east and west.

Though this journey is all about horses, the World Ride is an all-inclusive equestrian mission designed to encourage the positive interaction of horses and humans, not demonstrate the superiority of one particular breed. However one horse has already been chosen to participate in this challenging journey. Count Pompeii, the legendary Cossack stallion whom Basha rode 2,500 miles from Volgograd to London, is now in training, eager and ready to return to the road. Meanwhile, the Royal Friesian Horse Federation in the Netherlands is helping me search for a suitable mount.

With the new website completed, Basha has launched her quest to construct the first uninterrupted equine DNA chain. While she will be collecting hair samples from the breeds encountered on the World Ride, an international team of volunteers is already busy obtaining samples from horse-owners world wide.

Armed with her "talking computer," the blind North American Long Rider, Andi Mills, is leading this team of international volunteers. Using the internet, email, Facebook, and other twenty-first century social media, Andi's DNA team are creating the most extensive use of the concept of "crowd sourcing" ever seen in the modern horse world.

Samples from more than thirty different breeds have already been obtained from a variety of countries including Afghanistan, India, Australia, Europe and the Americas. Previously undetected breeds have been documented. And a possible link between a breed of curly-haired Mongolian horse and North American curly-haired mustangs is now being investigated.

In many ways the World Ride represents the merging of the Bronze Age activity of equestrian travel with cutting-edge twenty-first century technology, the result being a "Genghis Khan meets the Matrix" combination wherein state-of-the-art technology will allow reader/riders to participate from afar, thereby creating humanity's first inter-active equestrian epic.

Yet there is no way a journey of this magnitude can be undertaken alone. Therefore Basha and I consider ourselves fortunate to have the support of other members of the brotherhood of equestrian explorers. Some of the members of Team Equus include:

Patron - Jean, Lady Polwarth of Scotland, literary heir to Aimé Tschiffely, the most famous Long Rider of the 20th Century.

Diplomatic Relations - Sir John Ure of Great Britain, KCMG, LVO, FRGS, Ambassador of Her Majesty's Court, Long Rider and author.

Expedition Advisor - Robin Hanbury-Tenison of Great Britain, OBE, DL, FRGS, Long Rider, hailed by The Sunday Times as "the greatest explorer of the past twenty years."

Logistical Support - Colonel John Blashford-Snell of Great Britain, OBE, FRGS, Founder of The Scientific Exploration Society.

Technology Advisor - Tom Sjogren - Renowned explorer who has journeyed to both Poles, climbed Mount Everest and founded the Explorer's Web.

As you can see, many people are lending their talents and individual strengths so as to help us. One remarkable aspect of this effort has been the creation of a new equestrian journalistic chain of allies which The Long Riders' Guild has established around the globe.

In order to test this editorial alliance, a few days ago a special World Ride article was simultaneously released by the North American equestrian magazine, Horse Connection, the UK equestrian news service, Voices for Horses, and the international equestrian news service, Horse Talk, which is headquartered in New Zealand.

Here is a link to this unprecedented international equestrian news effort - http://www.voicesforhorses.co.uk/news/read_898_In-the-Hoofprints-of-History-by-Tom-Moates.html

If it is true that the age of national exploration is now past, the World Ride will demonstrate that we are witnessing the dawning of the age of the citizen-explorer, an enlightened era wherein individuals set out not to exploit the natural resources of their neighbours, nor to plant the flag of their country of origin atop a mighty peak in another land, but rather to explore the frontiers of this planet and our own souls.

Ultimately, the World Ride is designed to link humans and horses via the saddle and the internet, with the goal being to demonstrate that all humans share a common mother-tongue, "horse." That is why this is a journey about courage, not records. It is also why we writing to invite you to explore the new website, to follow Basha and me on our journey and to participate in this unprecedented equestrian event.

We very much look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Kind regards,
CuChullaine O'Reilly FRGS