Mongolia: Ride of a lifetime

GJSentinel.com - Full Article

August 5 2018
ERIN McINTYRE

You couldn't drag Christine Roberts away from wild horses. She is traveling thousands of miles to be with them, to compete in a world-famous endurance race she hopes to win and to experience something unlike anything she's ever done before.

Roberts will celebrate her 30th birthday by riding semi-wild horses more than 600 miles through the Mongolian steppe and competing in what the Guinness Book of World Records crowned the world's longest horse race.

Roberts, who first started riding horses as a little girl on her parents' farm north of Fruita, is an endurance racer who snagged one of the coveted spots in the Mongol Derby, a unique race chronicled in a documentary called "All the Wild Horses."

On Saturday, her birthday, she already will be on her fourth day of the race, which will take her and the other riders on an unmarked course across Mongolia, the largest landlocked country in the world. The race is a test of horsemanship, athleticism, endurance, navigation and sheer nerve. The course remains secret each year until the race begins, but each year's race pays tribute to Genghis Khan's network of horse messengers who crisscrossed his kingdom...

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