72 THE HORSE AND HIS RTDER. 



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 con- 

 veyed, 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, 1 840, by an 

 Arab horse at Bungalore, in the presidency of 



