When the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Co. launched the Pony Express on April 3, 1860, fanfare for the new express mail service made newspaper headlines from New York to San Francisco. Way stations spaced 10 to 20 miles apart provided couriers with fresh horses, enabling them to carry the mail across the West at the speed of a galloping horse. On September 22, when I arrived at the base of the bronze statue of a Pony Express rider on the Old Sacramento waterfront, their eyes were bright and their coats shiny, and though both were trail-weary, neither horse was diminished for the journey.