2019 Mongol Derby - the end

Welcome to the final 2019 Mongol Derby update!

As the last rider peels themselves off the finish line bar, leaving only a faint orange tinge on their face and a bad taste in their mouth, we also have to say goodbye to another edition of the world's longest, toughest horse race. 

Every time the race ends I think next August I am going to do something other than follow tiny dots on a screen and have rushed, overly emotional digital conversations with friends from a Time Before Children.  But as the next year rolls around, with depressing inevitability, I throw all of those good intentions out of the window, fill the larder with ready meals and tune in to the chaotic horse reality show that is the Mongol Derby.

So to all the riders, see you this time next year, every year, for as long as there is clear steppe and nomadic families generous enough to lend their prized horses to a crowd of lunatics.  Brent probably said it best:

This time every year the Mongol Derby changes about 40 people's lives forever. It’s never far away. I lay awake in the dark of the night and I think of the things we went through, the horses I rode, the airag I drank, the people I met, the nomads, the mutton, the spew, the smell, the falls, the pain and the nothingness of The Steppe. Every single day I remember Mongolia.

Thank you most of all to the Mongolian families who supplied their fantastic little horses and without whom this event would be impossible.  Thank you to the riders for turning up and gamely hopping on and off those little horses multiple times in the name of free entertainment eternal fame and renknown.  Thank you to the crew who work long hours, some year in and year out, to make sure this race continues and of course Tom Morgan and everyone at the Adventurists for organising and running the race.

A very special thank you to my dear friend Kate Willings, sometime "Chief", without whom this race would definitely be unrecognisable and would perhaps not exist at all.  She has departed for pastures new and if you would like to enjoy a spot of galloping across those pastures, you can find all of her wit, wisdom and considerable expertise here