The alt.usage.english FAQ   

• "hell for leather"

  (Phrase Origins)
  
  

  
     Robert L. Chapman's _New Dictionary of American Slang_ (Harper &
  Row, 1987, ISBN 0-06-181157-2) says:  "hell-for-leather or hell-
  bent-for-leather adv _from late 1800s British_  Rapidly and
  energetically; =all out, flat out.  _You're heading hell-for-leather
  to a crack-up_ [origin unknown; perhaps related to British dialect
  phrases _go hell for ladder, hell falladerly, hell faleero_, and
  remaining mysterious even if so, although the _leather_ would then
  be a very probable case of folk etymology with a vague sense of the
  _leather_ involved in horse trappings.]"

  
  
  Source: [Mark Israel, 'Phrase Origins: "hell for leather"', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 4926), (29 Sept 1997)]
  
  
  
  

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