How a teen became the first woman to win the grueling Mongol Derby

NYPost.com - Full Article

By Hailey Eber May 11, 2019

She was less than a day into a 10-day, 1,000-kilometer horse race, but Lara Prior-Palmer was already in trouble.

She’d been in high spirits when she set off from the start line with her 29 fellow competitors that morning, but now the 19-year-old British teen was all alone in the middle of the Mongolian steppe, the landscape stretching out before her. Her fellow riders had all left her in the dust, and she couldn’t figure out how to work her GPS. The small gray horse she’d been given to ride was lame, so she’d gotten off him and been walking alongside him for hours in the heat and humidity, both of them thirsty for water they didn’t have...

Read more here:
https://nypost.com/2019/05/11/how-a-teen-became-the-first-woman-to-win-the-grueling-mongol-derby/

VA Tech Senior Races Horses Across Three Continents

TheRoanokeStar.com - Full Article

– Amy Painter
May 8 2019

Hanna Bartnick contended with sharks, bears, and sandstorms during her capstone project and transcontinental odyssey.

As 23-year-old Bartnick raced her Boerperd gelding along South Africa’s aptly named Wild Coast, the duo negotiated jagged boulders, water crossings, vertical climbs, and narrow trails crowned with thorns.

It wasn’t until horse and rider arrived at the sandy shores of the Umzimvubu River on day two of the grueling Race the Wild Coast competition that the student paused to consider her most dangerous threat – sharks.

Located in the Eastern Cape province just south of Port St. Johns, the river, which feeds into the Indian Ocean, is a well-known breeding ground for bull sharks, making its waters some of the most perilous in the world. While swims were a daily part of the race, Bartnick and her competitors were warned to avoid this particular waterway...

Read more here:
http://theroanokestar.com/2019/05/08/va-tech-senior-races-horses-across-three-continents/

Australia: 2019 Tom Quilty Nominations Now Live

TomQuilty2019.com.au

Nominations for Tom Quilty Gold Cup 2019 have opened

May 8 2019

The Stirling’s Crossing Endurance Club – located in the picturesque Mary Valley on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – will play host to Australia’s most prestigious endurance horse riding event, the Tom Quilty Gold Cup, in July 2019.
The annual Australian Endurance Riders Association (AERA) event is one of the biggest national championship endurance rides in the southern hemisphere, spanning 160 kilometres and attracting over 400 endurance riders from across Australia and beyond.

The club is delighted to host the Tom Quilty Gold Cup in Imbil for the first time and looks forward to welcoming thousands of people travelling from all corners of the land to participate ― whether as a rider or a support crew.

The event will be held at the club’s home base, the Stirling’s Crossing Equestrian Complex which is Australia’s first purpose-built endurance facility. The complex combines state-of-the-art facilities with beautiful, diverse topography and an impressive range of tracks through the neighbouring Imbil State Forest.

Nominate now at:
https://www.tomquilty2019.com.au/

Will the World Equestrian Games Return After All?

Horse-canada.com - Full Article

Due South | April 30, 2019

As the problem-plagued 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) wrapped up in Tryon, N.C., one thing seemed clear – there would not be another WEG, at least next time around in 2022. But hold on a minute before you write WEG’s obituary.

Surprise! There already is one entity coming forward and revealing its interest in bringing WEG back for 2022.

First, though, a bit of history before the big reveal. You must understand that the difficulties involved in staging the WEG as a compilation of eight world championships are legion. (The FEI is now saying there are seven disciplines because it is including para-dressage with able-bodied dressage as one, but they ain’t the same.)

The feeling in many quarters after the Tryon experience was that WEG had just become too big and way too expensive. When the WEG began as a one-off in 1990, it included only six disciplines. Reining and para-dressage were not in the picture.

The success of that event in Stockholm led to a decision that there should be another WEG in 1994, though perhaps the FEI should have quit while it was ahead. Paris, the original host, cancelled, and the Dutch stepped in at short notice. Unfortunately, the 1994 WEG in the Hague was a financial disaster...

Read more here:
https://horse-canada.com/due-south/will-world-equestrian-games-return/?utm_source=Enews+May+6%2C+2019&utm_campaign=EnewsMay62019&utm_medium=email

Take it from the youngest winner of the toughest horse race: "We all have a bold mode"

Salon.com - Full Article

Salon talks to Lara Prior-Palmer about "Rough Magic" and her historic 2013 win of the grueling Mongol Derby

ERIN KEANE
MAY 6, 2019 8:59PM (UTC)

In 2013, Lara Prior-Palmer became the youngest rider and the first woman to win the Mongol Derby, a grueling endurance race across 1,000 kilometers of the Mongolia Steppe. The 10-day cross-country race retrace's Genghis Khan's horse messenger system route from the 13th century. Londoner Prior-Palmer, 19 at the time and a year out of high school with "dead end jobs" and equestrian competitions occupying her time as she waited to hear about applications to work in an orphanage in Ethiopia or an organic farm in Wales, embarked on this adventure not after training for years with dedication and purpose but after coming across the race's website — entry deadline already blown, the fee more than she could afford — and entering, by her own admission, on a whim.

It was going to be either too much, as Prior-Palmer puts it, or nothing at all. Her aunt, the World Champion equestrian Lucinda Greene, tells her matter-of-factly, "I suspect you won't make it past day three, but don't be disappointed..."

Read more here:
https://www.salon.com/2019/05/06/take-it-from-the-youngest-winner-of-the-toughest-horse-race-we-all-have-a-bold-mode/

An Unlikely Victory in an Unforgiving Horse Race

NYTimes.com - Full Article

By John Williams
May 5, 2019

If you like your memoirs to revolve around singular experiences, Lara Prior-Palmer’s “Rough Magic” delivers. In 2013, having recently turned 19, Prior-Palmer decided — on a whim — to enter the Mongol Derby, a rugged long-distance horse race. The competition asks participants to race for several days over 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland, on a series of 25 wild ponies (a new horse every 40 kilometers). It was a “truly peculiar invention,” Prior-Palmer writes. “A Pony Express-style format that mimicked Genghis Khan’s postal system but seemed from afar more like a perfect hodgepodge of Snakes and Ladders and the Tour de France on unknown bicycles.” Prior-Palmer became the youngest person — and first woman — to win the race. Below, she talks about realizing she was writing a book, the reason she’s “inspired by creatures” and more.

When did you first get the idea to write this book?

It was written before it was to be a book, in that I was astounded by what had happened and had the clearest memory afterward, so I wrote everything down on the plane home, just clinging to it...

Read more here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/05/books/rough-magic-lara-prior-palmer-mongol-derby-interview.html

Australia: 2019 Mudgee Endurance Ride held on May 11 and 12

MudgeeGuardian.com.au - Full Article

May 26 2019

The long standing Mudgee Endurance Ride is once again being held at Cooyal on May the 11th and 12th.

The ride is a memorial to Ray Gooley who was the club's head veterinarian for 36 years.

Pre-ride vetting takes place from 11am on Saturday with 10 kilometre and 20 kilometre introductory rides starting at 1pm on the day.

The main 80 kilometre ride starts at 5am on Sunday with the 40 kilometre ride at 7:30am.

Presentations are at 4pm with the prize list headed by the Ray Gooley Memorial Trophy for Best Managed Horse.

This year the longest standing member, John King, celebrates 46 years with the Mudgee Endurance Riders Club...

Read more here:
https://www.mudgeeguardian.com.au/story/6107280/endurance-riders-saddle-up-for-the-return-of-a-long-standing-event/?cs=12