Every year, from July 11 to 15, the country’s capital, Ulan Bator, hosts the festival known as Naadam. A festival that starts at the national stadium with dancing and music. It brings together the three national sports: Mongolian wrestling, archery and horse racing. These are sports that tell us what Genghis Khan’s warriors were like, hard fighting, good aim and the best riders in the world. The passion for these animals – not all the ones in the races are of the indigenous breed of Mongolia – translates into thousands of people following live a competition that has little to do with those that can be witnessed in European racecourses. For Mongolians it is not important to be fast in a short distance: it is about being the first to endure long distances. For this reason, the races are not held in the stadium. They must be done in the great meadows and can be 30 km long. The final distance of each race is determined by the age of the horse. In order not to punish the animal with a journey that is too long, if they are two years old they face a journey of just over 15 kilometers. And the more years, the more kilometers. In total, there are seven different age categories: Daaga (two years), Shudlen (three), Khyzaalan (four), Soyolon (five), Ikh nas (six) and Azraga (seven years or older),
One of the aspects that makes these races different is the age of the riders: boys and girls. Those in charge of getting on the horses’ backs are between 5 and 13 years old. Youngsters who have trained very hard to face the challenge and fill their parents with pride. It used to be done this way, since the little ones had to be prepared for the challenges of adult life when they weren’t raising a piece of land. Now they have to compete with a helmet and insurance against the risk of accidents. The Naadam festival races can attract thousands of horses from all corners of the country, although there are other festivals with similar races, where the challenge is to finish in the top five, prize positions. The winning riders receive an honorary title and the horse that finishes in the two-year-old category is named “the full belly”. And in a curious gesture, they sing him a song wishing him to come back next year and win.
The races are usually run in a straight line, with little risk of getting lost in the steppe. But in 2009 a group of enthusiasts decided to create a modern competition that sought to imitate the route of messengers on horseback that Genghis Khan created in Mongolia in 1224, a route that allowed a message to be carried from one end of the country to the other. This is the longest horse race in the world, about 1,000 km. And, things in life, only one year has a Mongolian won it, since they opened it up to foreigners. American Bob Long was champion in 2009 and Britain’s Lara Prior-Palmer, the first woman to be champion, in 2013. For Mongolians to see that foreigners can be better on their steppes has not been easy.
