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Choo, Choo, Choo!!!!

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Today was a magical day. Witnessing a horse race on the Mongolian steppe was surreal, beautiful, exhilirating, and extremely dusty. I’ve been to horse races before, but it was nothing like this.

This morning we drove about an hour outside of Ulaan Bataar to see the Nadaam festival horse races. As Mongolia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, it gets rural very quickly. We started off on a nicely paved road, and ended up bouncing across the steppe without a road in site. When we finally arrived at the race I felt like I was in the Wild Wild West. Dads, Moms, Sons, Daughters, Grandfathers, Grandmothers, and Couples were all riding around on horses. There was a community of gers (large, circular, felt tents that the nomads live in) selling food and drinks and not much else. There was no proper race track, but a few bleachers and a couple of small dirt trails. The race begins far out on the horizon (about 15-30 kilometers from the finish line), and there are no laps in Mongolian horse racing.

It was beautiful. Nothing but big blue sky, and green Mongolian steppe as far as the eye can see. And dust. Lots of dust.

Mongolians love horse racing like Americans love football, so there was an excitement stirring in the crowd and as soon as the first horse appeared far off into the distance a man started yelling “Choo, Choo, Choo!!” which made the crowd erupt in laughter and begin cheering. The atmosphere was great: Music that sounded very Native American, a cheering crowd, and the beautiful Mongolian countryside.

When the horses finally came into our view, I realized all of the jockeys looked like they were 6-10 year old boys, but they still looked so confident and natural on their horses. The crowd gave a big cheer for the winner and again for a poor young lad who had to pull his tired, frothing-at-the- mouth horse across the finish line.

Afterwards we stopped by one of the gers to grab a bite to eat and ended up hanging out with a family when a dust/rain storm came out of nowhere. It was a wild day and one that will stay with me for quite some time.

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Spin around and this is all you see for 360 degrees… and lots and lots of horses

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The race starts 15-30 kilometers from the finish line, so all you see in the distance for quite a while is a big cloud of dust (on the left)…

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Crossing the finish line

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Me with my mystery meat pancake (which is really quite good) and the lovely cook who made it for me

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A dust/rain storm came out of nowhere and this family let us hang out inside their ger (a big felt tent pictured below with the Mongolian flag) until it passed…

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