A BRUTAL RIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 242, 11 October 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

A BRUTAL RIDE.

THE BRUSSELS-OSTEND RACE,

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, August 29,

The great military ride from Brussels to Ostend last Wednesday deserves to rank with bull fights for its cruelty and brutality. The distance was 87 miles, and there were Gl competitors, who started in groups of i.our or five, an interval of two minutes being allowed between each set of riders. After some 60 miles had been covered the. French officers, fearing to be beaten by the Swedes, forced the pace, with the result that the race soon became a sickening exhibition of cruelty. Spurs were used unsparingly, and most of the poor animals that did not succumb en route staggered past the post in the last stage of exhaustion. The victor was Lieutenant Madamet, of France, who covered the distance in 6 hours 54 ruins., and whose mount died shortly after reaching Ostend. Lieut. Bauzil shortened the agonies of his steed by blowing out its brains. Other horses died along the route, and more than a sixth of the mounts are dead. The 12-year-old Irish horse of Lieut. Gibbon, R.F.A., the only English competitor, died suddenly 300 yds from home—much, it is said, to his surprise and grief, as it had shown no previous signs of distress. Of the first six to arrive the only horse to show no undue fatigue was that of Captain Joostens, Belgium, who took 8 hours l.mm over the journey. The animal's comparativelyfresh condition is accounted for by the fact that until three months ago the animal was running between the shafts of a Lcndon hansom.

Any fooi can ride a horse to death, but it takes a good rider to nurse his mount and enable it to cover long distances without ill effects. The race has been no test of the courage or ability of the riders, nor, considering the varying weights of the competitors, of the relative speed and staying powers of the horses of various countries. It has demonstrated, however, that good horses come out of Ire'and and Hungary, although our remount officers seem unable to discover them in the latter country.

The Boer war has furnished quite I enough tests of horseflesh to make Wednesday's ride merely a cruel work of supererogation in which considerations of humanity had no place either with the riders or with the Government authorities in whose country the contest took rlace.

Tne Brussels-Ostend competition recalls memories of the analogous one-horse ride between Vienna and Berlin 10 years ago, open to officers of the Austrian and German armies, for prizes ranging from £1000 to £75. One hundred and nine competitors started from Berlin, while 1"S Austrian officers rode off from Vienna. The distance between the two capitals is about 400 miles, and the first prize-winner. Count Stahremberg, an Austrian, covered the space in 715 hours, which gave an average of something over six miles an hour; while the second was the German Baron yon Reitzenstein, whose time was 73 hours 6mm. Many of the horses died under their riders, while all reached their gcal in a deplorable condition.

Lieut. Heyl 9m Hanoverian Dragoons, in November, 1901, rode from Met- to Bucharest, 1400 miles, in 25 days, his horse being as fit at the end as when he started. This gave him an average of W ~r th. previous a day. In the summer of tne v year Captain Spilberg rodejn t_ horse from Saarl>T 13 _ays^S4o milesSt. *^J££J?££ a day. Capan average °f neawy three hourg , tain Spilber* anoweo^ end sleep each w -^ poor horse waa in a °r _.n_- state. A little later the Russian Prince Suborolrskl rode on the same n.rse from Spa, in Belgium, to Nice in 23 days, his average being 50 miles per diem. The distance between Vienna and Paris Is 1250 kilometres, and in June, 1899, this was cover.- in 12 days and 14 hours on the same Irish-bred mare, by M. Charles Cottu, son of Baron Cottu, the wellknown adminUtrator of the Suez Canal.