Sophia Mangalee, of Eatontown, ventured to Mongolia to compete in The Mongol Derby, the world’s longest horse race. There is only so much training one can do before being put to the test. The Mongol Derby is the world’s longest wild horse race that challenged Sophia Mangalee’s survival skills on the very first day. It had nothing to do with riding and everything to do with luck: drawing a horse from a lottery.
“I got this little fat horse. I never would’ve picked this horse for myself. He was ugly,” said the 28- year-old Eatontown resident, who is a marketing manager at Monmouth Park racetrack in Oceanport.
What started as an “Oh, no” moment turned into a sweet surprise.
“Letme tell you, that horse ran for 25miles straight and it was the greatest moment. Myself and two other girlswere in the lead in the beginning and it was glorious. It was better than anything we’ve ever done,” she said.
The Mongolian Steppe landscape ranges from mountains to valleys to flat plains where daytime temperatures reach 95 degrees and fall to near freezing at night. The moment was short-lived, however. To ensure the safety of the local Mongol horses, a veterinarian checks their heart rates at a horse station every 25 miles. If the horse’s heart rate is more than 64 beats per minute, the rider receives a two-hour time penalty.
Mangalee’s little horse clocked in at 69 beats per minute.
“So I got stuck with a two-hour penalty. I had to sit there in the dark and watch everybody that I was ahead of go by because their horses were slower and had a slower heart rate,” she recalled, laughing.
To ride in the August race, Mangalee had to apply online at www.theadventurists.com. Once she was selected in October 2010, she had to raise a required $1,000 for a charity of her choice: Mercy Corps Mongolia. She ended up raising close to $3,000. Twenty-three riders entered the race, which was held across the Mongolian Steppe, but only 13 finished the 630-mile course in the northernAsian country situated between Russia and China. The course is based on the legendary postal system of Mongolian warrior and ruler Genghis Khan.
Mangalee placed 10th and completed the race in nine days. The 13- hour riding days began at 6:30 in the morning and ended by 8:45 every night. Temperatures ranged from 95 degrees during the day, down to freezing at night, said Mangalee.
Riders picked a fresh horse from a lineup at every horse station and were only allowed 11 pounds of gear.
Though Mangalee never felt as if her life were in danger, there were plenty of dangerous things that happened during the journey. She faced a bout of hypothermia one night, had two horses run away (one carrying all of her gear), came down with a virus another day and almost got struck by lightning.
On the fifth day, Mangalee and a group of riders were given a Mongolian guide to help them cross a flooded river.
“We could see coming down the valley these black clouds and curtain of rain coming, and we were riding straight into it,” she recalled of the storm before laughing incredulously at the fact that a rider on a horse is the tallest point out on a flat plain.
“The rain was hitting so hard the horses could hardly keep their eyes open. All of a sudden there was a huge roll of thunder, and 30 yards away, there was this lightning bolt [that] just came straight down into a pile of grass.”
With nowhere to go to take cover, the only thing for the riders to do was to keep moving, she said.
Before leaving for Mongolia, Mangalee and her friends had shared a few prayers. They told her they were sending a few guardian angels with her, a presence Mangalee said she could feel during the entirety of the race.
If riders did feel as if they were in a lifethreatening situation, they could call for help. Some riders suffered broken bones from being thrown from their horses or came down with viruses.
“Headquarters was tracking each rider’s movement throughout the race. They had two help buttons, one for the vet team and the other for the medic team. That being said, if a teamwas to pick you up, you were officially out of the race,” she explained.
Mangalee was fortunate never to have gotten lost but some riders were wandering for as long as seven hours off course.
“Just to have made it was an accomplishment. I went into it with the intention of trying to win it, but after losing my horse a couple times, it was clear that was not going to happen, so then it was just a matter of ‘I need to survive this horse. I need to survive today,’ ” she said.
“I could go there next year knowing every single thing I know and not finish any better. It’s so much luck. It’s so much getting a fast horse and having things go your way.”
Though the race was physically challenging, Mangalee was surprised her body was able to handle the stresses of the race without much muscle soreness. She didn’t account for the mental and emotional demands, however.
For someone who’s been riding since she was 5 years old, she expected there to be some kind of bond between her and the horse.
“Not at all a connection. These horses were so truly wild in their heart and soul. They simply tolerated us. There was absolutely no bond, no love between horse and rider,” she said.
There was a genuine relation, however, with the Mongolian people. On the last night of the race, Mangalee’s horse was sick. A man offered her a replacement horse.
What she didn’t know at the time was that this man owned racehorses and was lending her one of his very best.
“Up until that point, most of the horses had been pretty common, steady and not really fast,” she said.
“This horse was just like the horse on the first day. He just ran!”
When she got to the next horse station in less than two-and-a-half hours, she sported a grin from ear to ear. Shortly after, the translator told her the owner had seen how sad she was the night before and wanted to get her off to a good start in the morning so he gave her one of his best horses.
“That in an instant captures the essence of the Mongol people. You talk about it being a race, but it’s so much more than that. Mongolia is one of the last true nomadic cultures that exist in the world.”
Mangalee said she is incredibly grateful for the experience and honored to have been a part of Mongolia’s culture and people in some small way. The next adventure for Mangalee remains undetermined.
“When you’ve done the longest horse race in the world, there isn’t anything better,” she said. “So it’s really hard to come to terms with the fact that I’m not going to find anything quite as good.”
To read Mangalee’s personal account of the race, check out her blog at www.mongolderbyrider.com.