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To win the world’s longest horse race, Robert Prolonged employed equal parts preparation and smarts. In August, the 70-year-old turned the oldest winner of the Mongol Derby, which entails racing better than 600 miles all through the Mongolian Steppe, recreating Genghis Khan’s horseback messenger system of the early 1200s. Utilizing roughly 12 hours day-after-day for eight days, Prolonged beat out 41 prime riders from throughout the globe.
Preparations
Endurance riders make up most of the Mongol Derby crowd, nevertheless Prolonged—further of a cowboy—grew up in Wyoming and lives in Idaho. As a toddler, he labored cattle and went on horse-packing trying journeys alongside along with his family throughout the Yellowstone-Tetons area. Rivals wise, ranch horse versatility is his essential sport. It entails ranch utilizing, ranch path, ranch reining, ranch cow work and ranch conformation. Prolonged has started many aggressive horses for the sport.
So what prompted this cowboy to affix the endurance riders a world away?
“It was kind of a lark,” Prolonged admits. Whereas visiting friends, they launched him to a movie regarding the race known as The entire Wild Horses.
“It took me about 20 minutes to find out it was one factor I should do,” says Prolonged.
After researching the details that fall, Prolonged went all in. “I couldn’t assume or converse or behave with out worrying or engaged on the derby,” he says. “It was an all-consuming preparation.”
First, he moved his horse and tools proper all the way down to Arizona for the winter and made connections throughout the endurance world.
Prolonged borrowed Arabian horses,utilizing 4 every completely different day, 20 miles per horse, and competed in 50-mile endurance races. When the local weather heated up in March, he headed once more to Idaho and commenced conditioning reining and barrel racing horses at a ranch in Cambridge. He labored each horse about 10 miles a day.
“I’d get on a horse at 6 a.m. and nonetheless be utilizing at 8 that night time time, each single day,” says Prolonged.
Subsequent up, he visited earlier derby veterans, along with 2016 winner Marcia Hefker-Miles of New Mexico, who gave him solutions for vitamin and water safety, amongst completely different points. This included using iodine tablets throughout the water along with flavoring and electrolytes, plus a every day dietary complement. Once more in Idaho throughout the weeks predominant as a lot because the race, he examined all his gear, and even slept outside.
Starting Out Strategically
The race provides saddles and native Mongolian horses, nevertheless riders ship their completely different gear, along with stirrups and fenders. Prolonged moreover packed a bucking roll from one amongst his saddles.
“It was instrumental in preserving me throughout the saddle,” he says. “I’d get on these little waspy Mongolian horses, and they also’d crow-hop spherical and try to squirrel out from beneath you. These bucking rolls truly did the trick for me.”
After a drawing to seek out out preliminary horses, riders picked mounts on a first-come, first-served basis. In all, Prolonged switched horses 28 events all through the race.
“The Mongolian horses are heavy throughout the entrance end and lighter throughout the hindquarters,” he says.“Based totally on my instructing from the sooner derby riders, I was looking out for a taller horse that was slender and had an enormous shoulder on him.”
Prolonged’s solutions from earlier winners included befriending the native horse handlers. Small gadgets launched from handmade quick friends, and the handlers would counsel the best horses.
In addition to, Prolonged didn’t observe essentially the most safe routes set by the race organizers, in its place setting his GPS coordinates to hunt out shortcuts. Sometimes, nonetheless, these shortcuts took him away from water sources. On a mountaintop faraway from the precept route that adopted a river, the oldest winner of the Mongol Derby met a neighborhood lady doing her wash.
“By then I’d realized ample Mongolian phrases that I would convey that I wished horse water,” he says. “Her two little boys have been collaborating in in a galvanized tub of water. She shooed the boys out, and I watered my horse of their play tub. I took images of her, and he or she took images of me. It was a really gratifying experience. I obtained on my horse and took off, and that’s as soon as I actually moved ahead. I was throughout the lead from then on. I in no way appeared once more after that.”
Whereas many riders slept in gers, or yurts, organize at horse stations, Prolonged preferred to stay with Mongolian households who observe the race and welcome firm.
“I didn’t preserve at horse stations and let the rest of the riders meet up with me,” he says. “That will have collapsed my lead.”
Time with the locals moreover turned out to be a highlight of the race experience.
“That’s the half I liked in all probability essentially the most,” Prolonged says. The households displayed very good hospitality, caring for his horse and cooking him meals.
Twin ladies have been sitting on a corral singing songs and watching the sunset as he rode up one night time time. Their mother made sure he had modern milk from the family cow sooner than he took off throughout the morning. Gadgets of stickers, barrettes and lip balm bought to the host children.
Racing to the Finish
As with stateside endurance races, vet checks ensured the horses stayed healthful all through the race. A world workers of all-star vets, along with three renowned lameness specialists, checked the horses and dished out stiff penalties for factors they found. Prolonged accomplished the race with no vet penalties, partially due to a pre-check course of he developed.
“Two or so miles out I would decelerate, lower the bit out of the horse’s mouth and convey it up beneath his chin so that the headstall made a halter,” he says. “That gave him time to relax and eat, after which he may drink comfortably. I’d hit the vet stations, and my horses could possibly be calm, their coronary coronary heart prices could possibly be down, and I’d make some fast turnarounds.”
The race is organized by The Adventurists, and Prolonged credit score them with superb group.
“The message is that preparation trumps youth,” he says of his win. “I truly did have some good opponents. These guys have been expert endurance riders. They saved pushing me, and I thrive on that kind of opponents.”
Prolonged accomplished the race the race two-and-a-half hours ahead of the next rider.
Now that he’s once more residence in Idaho, this oldest winner of the Mongol Derby plans to have numerous shoulder accidents that occurred sooner than the race repaired. Then he’ll get to work alongside along with his 3-year-old ranch horse versatility prospect and do some packing journeys.
On no account one to rest on his laurels, Prolonged moreover plans to take a foray into reining.
This textual content about Robert Prolonged, the oldest winner of the Mongol Derby, initially appeared throughout the December 2019 topic of Horse Illustrated journal. Click on on proper right here to subscribe!
Extra Learning on Endurance
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