Holly Budge

Well if its at all possible… I managed to loose my horse whilst competing in the world’s longest horse race!

I got caught short of reaching the next checkpoint as it started getting dark. I set up camp for the night in the middle of the Mongolian mountains about 16 kms from the next checkpoint and tied my horse to a rock. My fellow competitor, Sasha, hobbled her horse… but these Mongolian horses scare easily and before we went to sleep that night the horses ran off at about midnight.

There was nothing we could do as it was dark and we couldn’t chase them. The next morning we called the organisers and it took them 5 hours to come and try and find us in the mountains. We had well and truly kissed goodbye to our lead at this stage.

Whilst waiting for the organisers to find us we went looking for our horses, and we did manage to find them… but do you think we could catch them? In the end it took 4 Mongolian men to capture our horses and it was midday. At this stage, we had also been without water for 14 hours which was getting a little worrying, especially as it is so hot during the day.

Due to the delay, its very difficult to catch up and everyone is about a checkpoint in front of us. Also the time limits on when you can ride is making it virtually impossible to get back into the running, as we can only ride from 5am to 8.30pm every day.

Yesterday was epic though, I rode 100km on my own covering 3 sections in the pouring rain. I was soaked to the bone and it was very lonely at times. I came across a group of wild horses and a couple of them came towards me and I realised the enormity of what I was doing, being out in the middle of the mountains completely on my own… it made me appreciate having a companion and today I was back riding with Sasha. We’ve riden another 80km today.

I think its still going to take another 5 or 6 days to complete the race. I’ve also had to ditch loads of equipment, including my tent, so I’m really hoping I don’t get caught short of the checkpoint again.

I managed to get a shower at one of the checkpoints yesterday, my first in 5 days and that was fantastic. I’m also really not fairing too badly with chaffing. Some competitors have got horrific chaffing on the backs of their legs, some even with open wounds.

Tags: Holly Budge, lost horse, Mongol Derby

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.