Race to the finish line: Dog chase, lightning storm and goat turds
This year, the Mongol Derby route — which changes every year — began east of Ulaanbaatar and travelled north to Lake Hovsgol, near the Russian border close to Siberia.
Day 1 — The race begins
I draw a little bullet horse who loves to gallop. The excitement of 36 thundering horses crossing the start line causes him to drop his head and buck several times and I spend 40 kilometres wrestling with the reins to keep his head up so he can’t buck. I pull into the first Urtuu (horse station) with an open wound on my left ring finger and nickname this pony “Blister.”
Day 2 — One dog, one lost GPS
After staying overnight in the ger (a portable, round dwelling) of a Mongolian family, I rise early and crack on, hoping to make good time. Instead I come across a vicious dog. A terrifying chase ensues, with me screaming, the dog snapping and my horse flat galloping. I lose the dog, but also lose my GPS. I flag down a Mongolian on a motorcycle and he offers me a ride to look for it. We bomb across the steppe at 135 km/h, and I find it, but I lose two hours of riding time.
Day 3 — Bathing in the wild
The temperature nearly hits 40 C and word trickles through the race that riders are succumbing to the heat, with medics administering IV drips for dehydration. Since yesterday afternoon, I’ve been riding with Paddy Woods, an Irish jockey. At 8 p.m., heat stroked and exhausted, we pull up to a ger and a young woman offers us one of the beds in her tent. She hands me a pail of water and bar of soap and in the middle of the steppe, with no privacy, I take the most refreshing bath of my life.
Day 4 — Blame it on the snoring
This is another day of intense heat, with two riders dropping out because of heat exhaustion. Swedish rider Thomas Ellingsén joins us and we slough along, with Ellingsén heat stroked and vomiting. We ride past a lake and consider jumping off our horses to take a dip, but want to keep pressing on to catch up with the riders ahead. of us. That night we stay with a family in a ger, but the father kicks us out in the middle of the night because of Woods’ loud snoring. We fall asleep outside, in goat turds, staring at the Milky Way.
Day 5 — Making new ground
The heat lets up a little and we are buoyed by the cool weather and a string of fast horses. We get three rockets in a row and despite riding some uncontrollable beasts and Thomas getting bucked off, we tick off more than 160 kilometres and catch up to 12 riders. Today marks the day we enter the more mountainous part of the race and we see trees for the first time since we started.
Day 6 — Chill sets in
As we set off this morning, we get word that Urtuu 18 has log cabins and a little river. We make it our goal to spend the night at this station, so we take a more relaxed pace. Just before
Urtuu 18, we have to hike down a steep incline through a forest. One woman gets stuck and lost alone in the woods, unable to hike with her horse down the steep declination. A rescue team is deployed. We stay in lovely cabins, but chilly mountain temperatures and rain prevent most of us from taking a dip in the river.
Day 7 — Weathering the storm
I now have a nasty chest infection and the cool, damp mountain air isn’t helping my illness. Ellingsén bombs off ahead of us and Woods and I join an English woman named Sophie Wilford and a Canadian named Bruce. Chernoff. We push to complete another 160 kilometres and in the final few hours of riding, I get left behind by the others, my horse much slower than the rest. A thunderstorm kicks up and has bolts of lightning strike all around my horse and me in a valley. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish. I catch up to the others at
22, but I’m angry they left me alone in the storm.
Day 8 — A day of sickness and injury
We set out in the pouring rain and with my illness I want to take it slow, but the rest keep a frantic pace. At
Urtuu 23, we come across another group of riders waiting for a medic. Another Canadian woman, Catriona Paterson, was bucked off and landed face first on a rock and needs four stitches to close a bone-deep gash across her cheek. I let the group I was riding with go on and decide to wait to ride with Paterson and her friends — a Spanish girl named Uma Mencia and two Americans named Kat Whitney and Sara Klymkowsky. We hear another Swedish girl just ahead of us was kicked in the head by a horse and then fainted from hypothermia. Everyone is cold, miserable and dejected today.
Day 9 — The finish line
After a terrible eighth day, we rise in better spirits, knowing that in less than eight hours we will be finished the world’s longest horse race. I take my time over the last 90 kilometres, picking kind, friendly horses and stopping at each changeover to enjoy the Mongolian cooking and families. At around 5:30 p.m., I’m galloping toward the finish line on a big black and white horse. The small group of people gathered to cheer our finish is a welcome sight and I cross the line, pull up my horse and jump off, a huge grin on my face. Someone hands me a beer and another asks me how I feel. “Am I ever glad that’s over,” is all I can muster.