Marmot holes everywhere

Day 5 threw us another curve ball: there was a race hold untill 10 o'clock that morning. The day before, we had heard about some injuries and illnesses at the front of the pack. Today we learned that two of the three medics had gone to the hospital in Ulaanbaatar with riders. We later learned that the riders that had to be taken in were Naomi and Sally. Sally especially was in pretty bad shape, she was suffering from severe heat stroke. Thankfully medic Andy recognised what was going on and did everything he could to get her to the hospital in time. Meanwhile, we took advantage of the race hold to sleep in. It had also started raining again so I wasn't too disappointed that we couldn't ride out early. By the time we got on our horses, it had stopped raining and the sky was clear again.

This stretch of the race led through a wide valley before taking us over the hills to HS16. It was a pretty hard one to navigate as there were a lot of different trails to choose from and we had to take a little detour to get to water. At one point, we ran into three Mongolian boys on horseback who rode with us for a bit to show us the right direction. They were great horsemen and tried to impress us by making their horses rear on command. Again, our horses were struggeling with the last 10 km of the leg. Mine wouldn't canter anymore so we had to trot. By this point I had some pretty bad chafing and trotting was the worst. All I wanted was to just walk in but we still had some ground to cover if we wanted to do three stations today. I thought I was going to lose Esther, as her horse was a bit fitter than mine and she had gotten ahead. I pushed on though and got to the station a few minutes after she did. My horse passed the vet check straight away so after some food and water, we we're ready to head out again.

Rachel and Sam rode into the station as we we're picking our next horses and after a quick stop, the four of us rode out together. On this leg, we had to cross train tracks. We got to an underpass that was quite low so our only option was to dismount and lead the horses. As we got ready to go through, a train suddenly came thundering towards us. Yes, we did look both ways but none of us had seen it coming. Thankfully we weren't trying to cross yet! Sam's horse was a little nervous but we all managed to get to the other side and get on our mounts again. The rest of the leg led us through some low hills and past a cemetary. In Mongolia, they still have sky burials were the body is left unprotected and exposed to the elements. We didn't spot any bodies though..

Again, the last 7 km to the station were the hardest. We weren't sure which route to take and we ended up taking a little detour. We rode into the station with two hours of riding time left and vet Cozy told us we could still make it to the next station if we went cross country, in a straight line to the station rather than sticking to the roads. We didn't have much of a choice, we had to make it to the next station in order to get to the finish line in time. I got a beautiful black horse that I named Blackjack, he seemed like he had wings, especially for the first part of the ride. He was very smooth and sure-footed. I thought I was going to die, there were marmot holes everywhere and he did trip a few times but he managed to right himself and keep going. I told Sam that being terrified at least kept me from thinking about my chafing! The first part of this leg was flat but the second part led us through the hills. It was so beautiful, the sun was setting behind us, the moon was rising and it was super quiet. It was a hard stretch for the horses though, as we cantered almost the whole way. We walked them into the station with only two-minutes shy of a three-hour penalty. We were still on schedule!