The Race by Jess Phoenix

One foot in front of the other, I trudged over the hill’s crest, reins clutched in one hand. Squinting, I could barely discern a faint light in the general direction I was heading. It looked to be about a mile away, but the gathering dusk was not helping my depth perception. Out of habit, I clucked under my breath to the weary, pitch black horse trailing me and tried to shuffle to a better vantage point. The horse stayed rooted to the spot, implacable and telegraphing just how thoroughly over the entire experience he was.

“Come on, dude. Only a few more minutes.”

He wasn’t budging, but my exhausted brain sparked enough for me to recall that Mongolian horses have a different command prompt than my big Thoroughbreds back home.

“Ch-ch-ch!”

The tension dropped from the reins as he stepped towards me. I lobbed a glance back towards the empty skyline before I walked on. I still could not be certain that I saw the lights of an urtuu, and I wanted something solid to tell Erik and George when they caught up.

***

A few days earlier, I had joined up with a group of other Americans to share the adventure and misery of the world’s longest horse race. The route was a staggering 1,000 kilometers—roughly 660 miles—spanning countryside once ruled by Genghis Khan. The Mongol Derby was loosely billed as mimicking the vast postal system implemented by Khan around the year 1200, and promised an experience like nothing else on present-day Earth. To ensure an even playing field for both animals and humans, horse changes were scheduled to occur every 26 miles at urtuus, or horse stations, staffed by Mongolian families contracted for the job.

The horses used in the race are semi-wild, left to fend for themselves during the depths of the ferocious Mongol winters, and are only ridden a few months each year. They are absolutely not pets, and must be respected as strong-willed, independent creatures. They are much smaller than the massive horses found in show rings today, but they are quick, brave, and can conquer rocky cliffs and ford rushing rivers that would cause Olympic-caliber equines to refuse, full stop. The year before my race, one rider lost a thumb in an accident. During my race, riders suffered a fractured pelvis, a punctured lung, a separated shoulder, torn knee ligaments, and a broken neck.

When I clicked “send” and emailed my application to race across Mongolia, euphoria flooded my veins. That same feeling has been my companion every time I’ve won a sports championship or sampled flowing lava on the flank of an erupting volcano. Becoming a volcanologist meant choosing a life of calculated risk. The Mongol Derby, meanwhile, was extracurricular, but there were few downsides I could see through the intoxication of adventure endorphins.

***

Standing just over the crest of that lonely Mongolian hill, I was unsure of exactly when I became aware that Erik and George should have already caught up to me. More than ten minutes had elapsed since I left them to scout ahead. In rural Mongolia, that’s a veritable eternity.

“Erik!”

Nothing.

“George!”

Nada.

The black horse, my partner for this leg of the race, nicknamed Anthracite after coal that is almost pure carbon, headbutted me and tried snatching the reins from my hand. We’d had a difficult twenty-six miles together. Mounting him had required four Mongolian herders to wrestle him into a frantic, zigzagging, semi-controlled sideways sashay so I could fling myself aboard. During this race leg, we had to chase Erik’s horse after it flipped ass-over-front upon stepping in a gopher hole at a full gallop. Erik is a true equestrian ninja and managed to launch himself to safety, but George and I spent half an hour catching his offended horse. By the time Anthracite started tug-of-war in the burgeoning dark, I was at the limit of my ability to be polite to anyone, horse or human.

He was my third horse of the day, and my ankles were ready to give out after twelve hours in the stirrups. Sighing, I pushed Anthracite’s head away and turned to slog back up the hill. A small engine whining behind us caught my attention. Sparse outcrops of tan boulders flanked the dirt road we were following. The track led down into a small valley filled with knee-high bushes, and the horse station lights I had glimpsed on the other side were definitely there. The smell of gasoline and motor oil hit as a single headlight bounced, drawing closer.

Glowing blue LED running lights became visible as the bike approached. I elbowed Anthracite’s shoulder, trying to move him safely off the road. He flashed his teeth at me. Apparently, we were still on formal terms despite our grueling day together.

The bike stopped and a beefy young Mongolian in a yellow T-shirt and a dirty baseball hat eyed me and my grumpy equine. I mustered a friendly smile, pointing at the urtuu lights.

“Urtuu?”

He looked where I pointed and then back, nodding. A quick string of Mongol words followed, and I shrugged, sheepish. My Mongol vocabulary was limited to baruun tish (turn right), züün tish (turn left), chigeeree (straight ahead), and ali mori khamgiin shildeg ve? (which horse is best?).

I attempted to thank the man and performed some lethargic charades to indicate Erik and George were still behind me, on the other side of the hill. Dirtbike broke into a Cheshire Cat grin and then pantomimed the universal gesture for sleep, laying his head sideways on pressed-together hands. I nodded and returned a thin smile. Grin spreading disturbingly, the man then gestured towards his crotch and made a few vigorous pelvic thrusts. I glowered and left no room for uncertainty in any language.

“No.” I spat the word into the dirt.

Undeterred, he pantomimed kissing along with the pelvic thrusts. Clearly this was going in a direction I had not anticipated, so I gave one last glance back to the crest of the hill. Still no Erik or George in sight.

“Ch-ch-ch!”

Anthracite responded, and I began leading him around Dirtbike. When the man realized I had no intention of abandoning my horse to commence open-air sexy times, his face morphed into a sneer I’ve seen before, on other continents.

As I passed the bike, trapped between him and the horse, he lunged for my left arm. I shook him off, now in fight mode. My knife was in my right pocket, but my right hand was gripping Anthracite’s reins. I used my left hand to activate the emergency signal on the GPS tracker the race organizers had provided. I had duct taped it to the left shoulder strap of my backpack, and hitting the HELP button gave me a small measure of reassurance. On my scientific expeditions, there was no HELP button. After the button glowed orange, I parried another of Dirtbike’s attempts to grab me.

The guy was not pleased with my evasive maneuvers and lunged again. I was in no mood to be raped (or worse) in the middle of rural Mongolia. My years of solving dangerous problems fast came into play. My best asset was the surly, four-legged moveable barricade breathing into my ear. I stepped towards Anthracite’s hind leg while pulling his reins towards his hindquarters. Anthracite responded, spinning between me and the bike, eyes rolling. Any sensible human will get out of the way when the ass end of a half-ton prey animal points at them.

Predictably, Dirtbike was aggravated at this equine-enforced rejection of his amorous advances. He gunned the bike in a tight circle, trapping us. Around me raged a maelstrom of spinning horse flesh, dust, and whining metal. As long as I could keep the horse between me and the bike, I knew we were safe. The Mongolian horses are short but strong and solid, and the horse outweighed the bike by at least seven hundred pounds. Anthracite’s attitude problem had become an asset, and we were now a team.

After a long minute or two, Dirtbike screamed something unintelligible over the engine whine and then sped away up the hill I’d just crested. I pulled Anthracite’s vortex to a halt, both of us choking on the bike’s dust. As soon as the bike disappeared, I led the horse off the dirt track and about two hundred feet straight into the low bushes of the valley. Not a single tree or hiding space was visible anywhere, and at that stage of dusk, neither was anything else. Well, anything other than my neon yellow reflective backpack and the two neon orange saddlebags strapped to the horse.

We kept walking as rapidly as we could manage. Gopher holes pockmarked that region of Mongolia like fleas on a dog. Breaking a leg in one was a major risk during daylight riding, as Erik’s horse had so nearly demonstrated earlier in the day, so I was concerned for both of us now that it was completely dark. I kept Anthracite between me and the dirt track, hoping that his bulk would shield my backpack from view. I silently cursed the orange saddle bags, whose high visibility had seemed so useful and clever before I was trying to hide from a would-be rapist in the deepening Mongolian night.

At least ten minutes had passed since I had pushed the button that was supposed to summon help. I could not see any activity at the horse station, and it seemed further away than my initial estimation. The gentle upward slope of the valley’s other side obscured the lights from view as we descended further. We were walking blind, and I was relying on my internal compass to keep roughly on course. I refrained from using my wrist GPS, as the LED screen would be seen in the dark.

The now-familiar whine of the bike’s engine reached us again and I halted, heart staccato in my ears. I inhaled slowly and peered over Anthracite’s back, trying to keep him still and silent. Horses can sense things beyond human perception, and he froze into a life-size horse statue. The bike slowed, its driver searching. I had never been so appreciative of a horse’s color, either before or since. Suddenly, the bike’s headlight cut a swath through the heavy velvet of Mongolian night. He may have seen us because the bike swung back down the road and gathered speed.

I watched its aftermarket neon blue LED running lights recede before it turned towards the urtuu. Seriously?! I had nowhere else to go, an exhausted and angry horse who was on high alert after tangoing with a motorbike, and I saw no sign of Erik and George anywhere near the hill. I resolved to get to the urtuu. Even if Dirtbike was there, other people would be, too. People who hopefully spoke English, and strongly disapproved of sexual assault. Safety in numbers, I hoped. I was banking on this being a race-affiliated urtuu, and not just Dirtbike’s family home.

We resumed our flight, stumbling over gopher holes and around bushes as best we could. Before long, the bike’s engine sliced the clear night air, the ominous metallic noise searing my adrenaline-addled mind. The headlight was much closer this time, and I gasped when it swung over us. It was still far enough away that I could hold out hope that we may not have been seen, but the reflective strips on my gear gave me pause.

Even more disheartening was my realization that the bike was leaving the horse station by a different route than it had arrived. It was tracking almost straight towards us, and was clearly not on the main road, judging by the way the headlight slammed up and down. Those custom blue running lights popped into view, confirming my fear: the pursuit was officially off-road.

The bike churned past me and Anthracite, only about a hundred feet to our left. We froze again, and once more seemed to have evaded our hunter. The blue running lights illuminated one change: there were now two men on the bike. The situation had jumped from bad right into the arms of worse.

With that realization, something deep in my gut hardened into steel. I was getting back on that horse and I was getting the two of us to that urtuu whatever the cost. Yes, it had taken the combined efforts of four people to get Anthracite under control for mounting earlier. The bike was sweeping across the valley in an arc, and its trajectory would bring it right to us in less than a minute. It was literally now or never.

I gripped Anthracite’s reins in my left hand and used my right to find the back of the saddle. His ears flattened to his skull and even by the weak starlight, I could see the whites of his eyes, challenging me.

“Hold still. We’re doing this,” I told him, not sure if it was for his benefit or mine.

I knew that a normal mount would be impossible based on the circus last time. I calculated that it was best to stand at Anthracite’s shoulder and face his butt. I quickly stabbed a boot through the stirrup and launched over his back, willing my ass to hit leather.

I missed.

The moment Anthracite felt weight in the stirrup, he bolted as if he was breaking from the starting gates at Churchill Downs. I landed behind the saddle, my legs forced out and away from his body by those accursed orange saddle bags. My right hand found the front of the saddle, and my left was fortunately hanging onto the reins. The horse had hit a full gallop in just a few strides, and every gopher hole I had seen over the last few hundred miles flashed through my head. I tried using my thigh muscle strength alone to pop over the cantle of the saddle and into the seat, but the height of the cantle stopped me cold. We were off to the races with me clinging on by sheer force of will.

When a horse is out of control and running away, there are two options. The first is to bail out in an emergency dismount, jumping clear of pounding hooves and hoping for a soft landing. The second—and preferred—option is to perform a one-rein stop. The mechanics are simple and effective. I was not willing to lose Anthracite, my only potential salvation, to the Mongolian wilderness, so I grabbed his left rein with both hands and pulled with my entire upper body. His head twisted back towards me, and his body immediately arced to follow. Horses cannot gallop sideways, so a proper one-rein stop will direct them into an ever-shrinking circle until they finally stop. It worked like a charm.

Anthracite shuddered to a halt, and I slid off, shaking. It was sheer luck that we had missed all the gopher holes. Unfortunately, I had lost sight of the urtuu lights during our chaotic sprint. The bike’s headlight was close but had not found us yet. I judged it to be a minute or two from where we were, tops. I had to try again.

Once more, I put my boot in the stirrup and launched myself with a tremendous heave upward. I wasn’t sure my quivering legs had enough strength to get me off the ground this time, but I managed. Anthracite bolted again, and I could hear the harsh ringing as his hooves struck rocks neither of us could see. For the second time, I found myself stuck behind the saddle on a wildly galloping horse. Another one-rein stop, this time to the right. I slid off, gasping as I touched terra firma. My legs burned from the failed attempt to get over that high cantle and into the saddle, and the subsequent desperate effort to stay on. A vision of me on the ground, arm bent at an unnatural angle with bone piercing the skin, easy prey for two strong men, catalyzed what came next.

The headlight drew closer, and both Anthracite and I were ready to collapse. I spoke to him with all the gravity I could muster.

“Come on, buddy. We can do this. We have to do this. Please.”

I readied us for what I knew would be our final attempt, successful or otherwise. One more deep breath, and I swung upward. Inky rock, tar-black horse, and endless night sky all blurred into one. His body lurched forward beneath me yet again. We careened through the dark, a deadly missile gone astray.

I missed. Again.

At that moment, I understood what it means to take ownership of your life. No cavalry was coming to the rescue. The barely rideable horse I was hanging from was not going to suddenly behave. The inexorable motorbike with its malicious crew was still advancing. This was the definition of do-or-die.

With one final, supreme exertion I willed every iota of strength to my legs. I squeezed and rocked forward and up as hard as I could manage. Every fiber of my being strained to get me into that saddle. Anthracite plunged forward, speeding through the night with the devil on his heels, one gopher hole away from irrevocable disaster.

I landed in the saddle and the entire state of play shifted. My head whipped around, eyes searching for the bike. Finding it, I clamped my wrecked legs around the horse’s sides and pulled him to a halt. As much as I wanted to tear off at top speed, I knew that would have been foolish. My feet found the stirrups, and I patted my new favorite horse on the neck. As soon as I located the area where I believed the urtuu to be, we started off. The adrenaline had us both wrapped in its thrall still, so keeping to a walk was excruciating.

Just being on top of the horse returned my feeling of power. Getting me out of the saddle with anything less than a gun was going to be impossible at that point. My plan was to head for the urtuu, and if I found no one from the race present, I would keep going through the night until morning, when hopefully the crew would find me or I’d spot another competitor.

At least forty minutes had elapsed since I had activated the help button on my GPS tracker. We were told during the pre-race orientation that help would arrive shortly after we called for it, but I had seen no one except for Dirtbike and his friend. I knew I was close enough to the race route that I should have been easy to locate.

As I pondered the absence of a response, I heard a low, rhythmic rumble coming from my left. Anthracite cocked an ear and his head perked up. The rumble resolved into a thundering wave of hoofbeats, rushing towards us at speed. Anthracite lashed his head from side to side, eager to join the herd that would soon overtake us. Being caught in a stampede in the dark was not anything I had anticipated, but I hoped it would distract our pursuers on the bike.

As the herd rushed towards us, a few horses neighed. Anthracite responded, his cries joining those of the galloping herd. Those neighs drew a clear picture in the night air and the roiling sea of horseflesh parted around us, some coming close enough to touch. We sat, a perfectly still island amidst the stream of racing bodies. I fought to keep my grip on the reins, Anthracite trying his best to tear them from my hands to join the others.

The herd sped past; the wave of animals seemed endless. The night had become completely surreal, and the combination of adrenaline and fatigue distorted my thoughts. The only thing that mattered was getting to the urtuu. As soon as the equine torrent had passed, we walked.

The hill had begun to slope steeply upward when I saw the glint of metal under starlight. I chanced turning my headlamp on for a moment to check and saw an SUV. Behind it, I saw another. Behind those, a ger, the traditional tent home of the Mongolian people. A male voice drifted down the slope towards me, words indistinguishable. No matter because the accent was British.

“Hello?” I barely recognized my own voice, cracked and tremulous.

The voice paused.

“Hello!” I called more assertively, hope and insistence creeping in. I stopped Anthracite to make sure I could hear the response.

“Hallo?” The Brit responded.

“Who is that?” I asked, teetering on the edge of the fragment of self-control that remained.

“It’s Kevin! Who is that?”

“It’s Jess!” My entire body shook, commencing great involuntary exhalations of relief as I recognized him as one of the English documentarians tasked with filming the race.

“Are you ok?”

I could see him clearly now, his face lit greenish by the glow from the satellite phone in his hand, eyes narrowed and searching for me.

“No! I need help. Now. Please!”

I urged Anthracite forward the last few feet to meet Kevin. I dropped out of the saddle, and I vaguely heard Kevin calling for help from the urtuu. Someone came and took Anthracite’s reins. At first, all I could choke out between gasps was to tell them to be nice to him, because he had kept me safe. Kevin wrapped his arm around my shoulders and helped me forward as my legs fought to function. We made our way towards the ger amidst a growing crowd of Derby riders, crew, and locals.

As the warm light from inside the ger pushed back the waking nightmare I’d just come through, I begged Kevin for his satellite phone. I dialed my husband at our rented house in Australia, desperate to tell him I had survived something neither of us had anticipated when I entered the race almost a year before. Our talk steadied me enough to push the decision about whether to continue to the morning, reassured that whatever my choice was, it would be best made in the light of day. As I hung up, I saw Anthracite being led to the other horses to get his well-deserved dinner, and every emotion coalesced into overwhelming gratitude for that little coal-black spitfire of a horse who had saved both our lives.

Image Credit: Richard Dunwoody via Flickr Creative Commons