Historic Failures: The Pony Express

For as long as there have been horses, there have been people demanding horses delivered to their door. Even though horses have been domesticated since about 3000 B.C. when man discovered the scientific break-through of punching horses in the head until they do what you want them to, it wasn’t until 1860 and the Pony Express that the world saw its very first horse delivery service.

President James K. Polk was upset with the fact it took him about six months for him to have a horse delivered to the far west. Like any self-respecting man, Polk wanted his horses sent places in a timely fashion. Towards the end of his presidency, he began to divert tax money to a secret project that would eventually give the world the Pony Express.

Unfortunately for Polk (and tax payers nationwide), the project would turn out to bear bitter fruits. Bitter, horse-killing fruits.

A nameless scientist who worked on Polk’s project had the following to say on the methodology of the Pony Express:

"Horses are pretty fast, right? What if we tied one horse to another horse and made it run real fast to the desired location. That’d be pretty cool. We’d have to tie the horses real tight because horses are pretty heavy, but I think there’s some real potential here. I mean, I don’t know about you, but my brother can tie a real good knot. Mmhmm."

Ultimately, the Pony Express was a failure. Unless of course you consider pairs of bonded horses tumbling down creeks and ravines so they land in broken heaps and unable to graze because of grievous injuries that would eventually lead to either starvation or death at the hands of elements to be successful. In that case, it was very successful.

How the hell where the horses supposed to know where to go? Come the fuck on.