3. "1800-mile Trail Ride—Texas to Vermont"

By Frank Hopkins, introduction by Harvey Wingate

Introduction

I wish all of the members of the Green Mountain Horse Association could have been with me when I spent an evening with Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hopkins of Long Island City and Laramie, Wyo., who has written this story of one of the greatest rides ever held in the United States. This ride started at Galveston, Tex., and finished at Rutland, Vt., and was, undoubtedly, one of the longest endurance rides on record in this country. Mr. Hopkins is now over seventy-five years of age, and during his life has competed in 402 endurance rides, most of them being races. He lost only one of this number and that proved, afterwards, to have been crooked.

He has performed trick riding stunts before all of the crowned heads of Europe and gave a command performance, with only one Indian companion, before Queen Victoria. This exhibition was given on a new lawn at Windsor Castle and you can imagine what two wild ponies did to that lawn in two hours of rough riding. However, the Queen told him to forget the lawn as it could be replaced.

Frank Hopkins is the only white man to ever compete in the "Thanksgiving Day" 3,000-mile ride in which only Arabs were supposed to participate and he also won that ride.

I wonder how many of us could ride in a Wild West Show for two hours every day for two years. That is what Mr. Hopkins did for two World's Fairs in Europe.

While a dispatch rider, he was shot seven times and bitten three times by rattlesnakes. He has shot several outlaws for the Government, including the very bad Tracy, for whose killing he refused a check for $3,000 given him by the Governor of the State of Washington. He speaks the various Indian dialects fluently and was a friend of Sitting Bull, Big Foot, and many other famous Indian chiefs.

His patience and native ability have enabled him to train horses other people could do nothing with and even today he can train them very well. He loves horses and good horsemanship and has had many a fight with men who used cruelty, in place of training, to make a horse do the proper things. Someday Mr. Hopkins will write us an article on the training of horses—he has promised me that he will. I wish to thank Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins for a grand evening and for this story.

- HARVEY P. WINGATE.


"1800-mile Trail Ride—Texas to Vermont"

To one who loves the great outdoors, there is nothing quite so interesting as a Trail Ride. It makes little difference whether you ride the sage-covered plains and foothills of the far West or the rugged hillsides of the Eastern States. There is something fascinating about such a ride—the falling leaves moving about your horse's feet, the squeaking of the saddle leather beneath you. The busy horse seems to enjoy covering the trail fully as much as his rider. There is new scenery for every mile you cover, but in the distance will be a beautiful hill covered with green spruce or sugar maples, with their autumn leaves of red and yellow, you will be anxious to get to. And when you do get to this spot, there will be another that looks more beautiful, beyond. As the day draws near its end, maybe you will see a glorious sunset dropping behind the faraway hills. So you have come to the close of the pleasantest day of your experience.

Caring for your mount is part of the day's pleasure. As a dispatch rider for the Army during the Indian troubles on the Western Plains for nine years, I have known the thrill of many long rides. Some of these rides covered 200 to 300 miles. My mounts were fed on wild buffalo grass. They got the best care I could give them, although the best could not be much. There was one class of horse I liked best and would ride no other but this, even though there were many fine-looking mounts offered me—I refused all but the Indian pony, a hardy little animal, no trail too long or too rough—a horse that could get along without grain and go without water for two or three days at a time. Still the Indian pony has a weakness—the sound of the human voice will worry him off his feet. I never spoke to my ponies while up there in the saddle.

There was one pony I shall always remember in particular and this horse will be remembered long after I have crossed the last canyon. I called him "Joe." He was given to me by a man who believed him a hopeless outlaw. This horse was still in the horsetrap where he had been caught as a wild Indian pony. I broke him in the trap; four months later I rode him on the buffalo runs. When "Joe" became used to the crack of the gun, he was the best buffalo horse I ever expect to hear of. He could stay with a run of buffalo til they were shot down and then race off after another run; he could lope off all day without dropping back into a walk. "Joe" was not fast, but he could wear other horses off their feet in a few days. I rode "Joe" from Galveston, Tex., to Rutland, Vt., the year 1886. I had been carrying messages for General George Crook during the Geronimo campaign down in Arizona. "Joe" was used in my string and when I was relieved from duty I rode him from Fort Apache, Ariz., to Fort Laramie, Wyo. On reaching there, I was told of a ride from Texas to Vermont. Buffalo Jones agreed to finance me if I would sign to ride in that race. Three days later I was booked at Fort Russell and started training "Joe" for the long Trail Ride. In three months, "Joe" was in the best of shape—fifty miles a day, three days each week, without a bandage on his legs or artificial courage (such as stimulants) of any kind. I allowed him to travel as he wished, not trying to force him to any particular gait; he preferred to lope or a flat-footed walk. Trotting was out of the program with this little stallion. Most of those wild ponies can lope along without much action—that is, they clear the ground and put their feet down very lightly. "Joe" had carried me on many long rides. I was sure he would reach Vermont ahead of the other mounts. Some of them were of the thoroughbred blood. I watched them exercise for a week while we waited down there in Texas. Fine looking horses they were, but too snappy and nervous to start out on a long ride of that kind.

On the sixth day of September, 1886, we started from the Old Point Ferry Slip, Galveston, Tex. There were 56 riders in all—some were cowboys, others cavalrymen and six were bridle path riders (I was amused to see them bobbing up and down on their small flat saddles, for I had never before seen the English type of saddle). All of the riders left me at the very start. "Joe" never cared about racing away with the bunch; he would just put one foot ahead of the other all day and never seemed to tire. The first day of that ride "Joe" was a little sluggish, which I thought might be due to change of drinking water. I did not urge him on, but after riding twenty-three miles, I called it a day. Under the rules of that ride you could ride ten hours or less if you wished. Each rider carried small cards that were to be signed and the exact time the rider stopped was marked on his card. This was done where the rider stopped and then checked by the judges. It was September 13 before I came up to the other riders. Four of those riding English saddles were in bad shape and their mounts were a sorry sight to look at—over in the knees and spread behind, their muscles trembled and twitched; those were out of the ride for good. The next day I passed twelve more tired horses. "Joe" was feeling fine. When I took his saddle off at the end of the day he would swing his head and let his heels drive at me. I always let him roll after taking off the saddle. This may not be any good to a horse, but they all like to roll. On the 17th, "Joe" and I had passed the last horse and rider. We were in Mississippi where there had been a heavy rain and the yellow mud stuck to "Joe's" feet like soft snow, but he would shake his head, jump and play at the close of every day.

Our route was marked with red paint daubed on trees, fences, and stones, so it was easy to follow. On this ride I weighed 152 pounds, my saddle blanket and slicker weighed 34 pounds; "Joe" weighed 800 pounds when we started the ride. I used a six-strand rawhide Hackamore without a bit. "Joe" did not like iron in his mouth—it seemed to worry him. I got word from the judges when they caught up with me in the towns that I was putting a lot of hills and valleys between me and the other riders, but I could not believe I had gained so much mileage. I had stopped to feed at mid-day in the town of Gallatin, Tenn. One of the judges stepped out in front of "Joe" as I was riding away and said, "You're riding against time now for there's not another rider within many miles."

I do not think it is good to rest too long in the middle of the day. Some riders do rest their mounts two or three hours but I have learned that a long rest is not good, for horse and rider will both get tired. One hour is plenty. And keeping your horse on his feet fussing over him and rubbing him after the day's work is done is not good. I always taught my horse to lay down and rest after I had rubbed his back with a damp cloth, and let him rest for two hours before feeding. I gave him a good bed where it was quiet and let him alone for the night. A good rubbing in the morning will make him feel fresh on the start of a new day. I might say that a horse that has plenty of endurance in him is not without a background—even "Joe's" ancestors were of the Arabian blood. The pedigree of a horse does not stand for much if there is no bottom or stemming in such an animal, although they get along in their own class and are thought quite a lot of. The real Morgan horse that I knew years ago was a very hardy animal, but those horses have been crossed with the thoroughbred from time to time; this crossing did that breed more harm than good, for they neither look nor act like the old-time Morgan. Each breed of horse should be kept in its own class. If I tried to run any of my endurance horses on the race track they would be out of their class and if a running horse was entered in one of those long rides he surely would come to grief as it was proven on that Galveston–Rutland ride. "Joe" and I were in Rutland thirteen days before the second horse and rider arrived. That horse was broken down in spirit and body. The third horse came a few days later, a broken-down wreck. I weighed "Joe" the following day after arriving at Rutland and he had gained eight pounds on the ride; he was seven years old at that time and I claim that it is the best year of a horse's life—at least I have found it to be so with endurance horses.

A large, heavy-bodied horse with too much daylight under him will not make an endurance horse, for he will pound himself to pieces on the long run. I would not train a horse, for a long hard ride, that weighed over 1,000 pounds. He must be close to the ground and well muscled with a short back and neck—the horse with a long slim neck will tire quickly. Today most riders want mounts that stand 15 hands or more—that is the first thing they will ask—"How high does your horse stand?" There are many other things to look at besides the height of a good mount. Some horsemen will speak of a horse's color which, in fact, goes only the length of the hair.

"Joe" was buckskin in color. When I rode him into Louis Butler's small stable at Rutland that October evening, many men of the town gathered to look him over—more on account of his color than anything else, for many of them had never seen a horse of that color. Although "Joe" had covered 1,799 miles in thirty-one days, without a day's rest on the trip, many of those horsemen criticized his color. "Joe's" average per day was 57.7 miles. I received $3,000 from Elias Jackson for that ride. Three weeks later I shipped "Joe" to Wyoming and bade farewell to those good people of Vermont. To me it was just one more long ride, for my daily work had always been in the saddle. When I reached Fort Laramie, Colonel W.F. Cody was waiting for me. He wanted me to ride in his show, which was known as the "Buffalo Bill Wild West Show." I played in the first Madison Square Garden, New York, that winter and then went to Earl's Court, London, England, the following spring. In fact, I stayed with Cody until his death, 1917. I rode in many endurance rides through Europe. After the World's Fair in Paris, France, I visited Arabia and rode in a 3,000-mile race, using one of my Indian ponies who also won that race. That pony was spotted cream color and white. He was a stallion whom I named "Hidalgo."