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Gaucho Derby 2020: Day One

The gun has fired on the first ever Gaucho Derby and the starting group (number unclear) of pioneer riders (not entirely sure who's in there) have set out on the race towards (nope, don't know that either). You get the point.  I rather like the "pioneer" tag the Adventurists have come up with for this race, as it happens; the image it conjures up of a lonely group of riders setting off into uncharted territory seems fitting for a race in this little known but much romanticised corner of the world.  

The Mongol Derby has been running for ten years with many tweaks and refinements along the way.  On this first edition of a new race, with so much unknown, what can the riders expect?  A lot of these riders are Mongol Derby veterans and the rest have been carefully picked as excellent horsemen and women.  They will have prepared as well as they could (with the exception of Chris Maude whose idea of preparation is a swift half pint with a whiskey chaser), but all Mongol Derby veterans will know that you just can't prepare for this sort of madness.  I reserve a great deal of love and affection for what Kiwis call the number 8 wire* mentality - a sort of "she'll be right" attitude that leads to incredible feats of daring as far as trailer loads go but also a worryingly high road toll.  The thing is, lots of people think they want adventure and danger.  But do they really?  I suppose twenty-four riders are about to find out.

Much of the race's appeal echoes that of the Mongol Derby: horses, spectacular wilderness, the chance to live a glamorous cowboy lifestyle for a couple of weeks (or try to, anyway) and Cozy (more on this ever charming vet later).  Riders must cross the finish line in ten days, but they will cover half the distance of the Mongol Derby and that fact, coupled with the news that riders will travel with a pack horse for much of the race, leads me to assume that the terrain will be far rougher and the pace far slower.  

Day one has given us some pretty funny pictures of riders attempting to charge off the start line with pack horses behind them showcasing the best equine version of "WTFF" I've ever seen. And sure enough, Charles Van Wyk and at least one other swapped his pack horse early on. Pity poor Chris Peterson, whose pack horse apparently "gave up the ghost" before it even reached vet station 1. I don't think it is actually dead. But I bet Chris has uttered some pretty dire threats and sent some pretty dark thoughts in the poor beast's direction.

Navigation looks like it will play an important part in deciding the winner, too. K MacLeod is in front and on her way to vet station 3 having picked the right valley and navigated cunningly through it, unlike the chasing pack. I presume this means she kept to the bottom of the valley. I learnt the hard way recently that river valleys have steep gulleys (when galloping this means several enormous leaps that arrive out of nowhere requiring a great deal of faith in one's horse, or God, or both. As a dear friend says so often "JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL".)

The horses look like station horses, so possibly more used to riders and work than the Mongol racehorses.  Perhaps gauchos are less interested than fireworks off the start than Mongolians?  I'm not sure - all of my knowledge of Patagonia come straight from Bruce Chatwin and I can't remember him saying anything specifically on this score.  Either way, blokes who ride station horses aren't too worried by a bit of nonsense and horses have opinions which may not sit happily with the hopes and dreams of their funny smelling foreign jockeys.  Most of whom are women.  No, Maude, I'm not directing that at you.  Sympathy on the horse score to Canadian Nichole Murray who was booted on the start line before the race even began.  She was still sore enough half way through the day to stop and ice her leg in the river and it is very early to get any sort of injury so she is one to watch.  Annie Aul was also chucked by a palomino, whose back strap** worked loose and magically transformed into a flank strap***. Buck it out, Annie! Randomly, I once attended a dressage clinic where someone was trying to sell a young horse to the instructor and the seller warmed the horse up on the lunge... with a flank strap. He got on the horse and I was just thinking "that horse really hates that guy" when... Yep, you guessed it.

Anyway. Annie's wayward palomino did get loose and promptly bowled Chris Peterson. So for rodeo fans, stay tuned! There's no reason there won't be just as many thrills and spills in Patagonia in March as the crowds enjoy every August in Mongolia.

Nichole icing her leg in the river was not a typo by the way (glacial melt? Geographers help me!). It was hot enough today for Zsofia Homor to get a two hour vet penalty for a horse whose heart rate didn't come down in time, but temperatures are due to plummet to around freezing in the next couple of days and the riders are crossing high country. No doubt many riders still cherish fond memories of the Mongol Derby 2015 (where riders dropped from heat exhaustion and then shortly afterwards started dropping with hypothermia)…  The race twitter feed left us with gloomy weather predictions, the temperature dropping and the wind picking up.  

In any case, for better or worse, they're off! May they speed smoothly to the finish line and encounter only sunlit plateaus and obliging horses en route. No, I mean, who am I kidding. Let the carnage begin...****

Start Photo credit: Richard Dunwoody, courtesy of the Adventurists


* number 8 wire is the standard wire used to fix everything
**an extra strap used on larger Western saddles for stability
***an extra strap used in rodeos for instability
****yes, yes. I'm just jealous