selenak

If you haven't already read the earlier post about the Naadam opening ceremonies, wrestling and archery, you can do so now. The horse races take place at a considerable distance from the city of Ulan Bator, not least because there isn't a race track in the conventional sense, though there is a finishing line. But racing involves gallopping about 20 kilometres (metric system for the win, says this continental European) through the steppe. So what happens for the audience is that you get up early, and drive out to the race territory. Well, if you're a tourist. The truly dedicated Naadam race visitor just moves there with a tent or a yurt/ger. You'll see. Anyway, if you do come by car, the car is parked for obvious reasons at some distant parking spot and then you wander over the hills to the finishing line heart of the races, from which they also start.

A later photo first, so you see the dimensions. This was taken around noon, between the three years (horses, not jockeys) old race and the two years old race. The dust bowl inside is where the finishing line is.

Our interpreter said on the morning of the three years old races, there are no people left in Ulan Bator itself, and I can believe it. Back in time to early morning. The young jockeys, riding the best three years old horses of the country, assemble. Note that several of them don't use saddles. As I said in an earlier post, the avarage age of a jockey for the Naadam races is ten.

This man and his kid behind the jockey are audience members. Several Mongols show up on horses because the sitting place is extremely limited, and on a horse's back you have a better view than standing.

Said sitting opportunity:

We ourselves didn't have tickets to sit for the three years old race, but we did for the two years old race. For the three years old, we were standing, which turned into quite an adventure, about which more in a moment. Have some more young jockeys first:

One poor kid had nervousness getting away with him:

More of the sitting-on-horseback audience:

From the finishing line, they started here:

Every horse being briefly examined by vets to check whether it was indeed a three years old. (Or later two years old.) Apparantly this is done via examining the teeth. After passing the vets, they moved on to a spot a bit away from the audience, and from there, the actual race started - i.e. the horses riding to that far away spot on the horizon, turning and coming back those 20 kilometres. Here's one boy who came in late to the start and still tried to catch up:

Thus it wouldn't be until about 40 minutes later when the excitement of watching the horses come in would arise. There was entertainment for the audience in between, like some riders in historical costumes and otherwise who'd shown their skills at the opening ceremony already, and now did again up close:

And then, for some reason, paratroopers, landing right at the finishing line where the race would culminate later:

Now as I said, for the first race of our final day in Mongolia, we were standing. Next to the railing, and of course the closer it got to the race proper, the more people tried to squeeze in there, too. And pushed. And squeezed. All to be expected, but not helped by the police occasionally pushing back and later ordering the people in the front lines to sit down. At that point, we had met the only two truly deeply unpleasant people we encountered during three weeks in Mongolia. Two women, who first abused our poor guide, who was a slender, tiny woman, pushing her, yelling at her, until she gave up (we reunited with her later), and then turned to us. One in Mongolian, and one in broken English. The one yelling in broken English shouted "Fuck you", "this is Mongolia, go back to your country", "you stupid bitch", and again and again "fuck you". I tried to ignore her and remained silent. My father eventually said "only pretty girls", which made her even more angry. Her companion yelled in Mongolian at the cops gesticulating at us, but presumably if she tried to incriminate us as trouble makers, the fact we remained silent - Dad's reply notwithstanding - and she and her friend were the ones yelling and pushing spoke for itself.

However, after the order to sit down was obeyed for about ten minutes, someone actually tried to push through from behind. People got up again hastily in fear of literally being trampled to death. More squeezing and pushing. The cops pushing back from the other direction and shouting presumably to sit down again. "This is too dangerous," said my father, "let's go." I didn't want to concede the field to the terrible duo of Worst Women Of Mongolia, but otoh I also had visions of football games and dead audiences, and thus gave in. (Especially knowing that we had tickets for the second race that would ensure that we would see these horses and riders up close.) We somehow got out of the standing crowd, passed the line of riders who watched from their horsebacks, and saw the rest of the race from one of the hills. Here they come:

In between races, we met up with our interpreter, and she guided us to a far away hill where some of the rich & famous had put up their gers. Including the newly relected President and the members of parliament, in the wise acknwowldgment that none of them would be in Ulan Bator on this day anyway. Also several of the most famous cattle and horse owners. This had two benefits: a) there were not-overcrowded sanitary facilities - spending a day at the races is fine, but the chemical field toilets for thousands of people are not, and b) one of the proud horse owners was a pal of our interpreter's and offered fermented mare's milk (which was when I took the plunge and finally tried it) and cake. Davaa said this was self evident hospitality for Naadam; I got the sense she wanted to erase the impression the two ghastly women had left, but there was no need - everyone on that three weeks journey had been great otherwise.

Where the VIPs reside during the festival:

Inside the hospitable ger:

And who should we meet outside but the President himself, saying hello to a race winning horse:

The President is in pale green, the horse owner in yellow, and the guy in blue is according to our interpreter the biggest crook in the country but still at liberty. She said he was the Mongolian Berlusconi.

The horse when the President had left:

A jockey for the next race with his horse:

Now, it was back to the races, for the second years. This time, we did indeed see the horses and their young jockeys come in at top neck speed up close:

Here you can see the car with the tv people in the background (the races of course are broadcast all over Mongolia) and also that one of the kids riding is a girl:

Note the lack of a saddle:

Of course, at that speed it's hard to catch sharp images, but we were lucky a few times. Never more so than with this shot, for these were the ones coming right behind the winner, and with this image, I shall wrap up my Mongolian adventures - none better: