{"id":63998,"date":"2025-08-13T13:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/63998\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T13:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T13:00:08","slug":"eventer-michael-pollard-is-co-winner-at-mongol-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/63998\/","title":{"rendered":"Eventer Michael Pollard Is Co-Winner At Mongol Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Michael Pollard sent off an application to participate in the Mongol Derby<\/a> a couple of years ago, his other equestrian commitments were pretty minimal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a couple ponies for [my daughter] Sterling at the farm, but I wasn\u2019t really doing anything too horsey. In the subsequent years, since I put in an application, I\u2019ve started riding a lot more and teaching a lot more. And then I had, you know, 15 to 20 horses at the house,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019d been following the race for several years, and thought the combination of an adventure race and horses would be fun. When the organizers finally called out of the blue and invited him to participate this year, he hesitated because his horsey life had gotten so much busier. But his wife Amber Pollard encouraged him to go ahead, so he started preparations\u2014keeping up his fitness with high intensity interval training to prepare for all the hiking, and getting down to his competition weight from his five-star eventing days. He was already riding seven or eight horses a day anyway, so he was well-prepared to spend all day in the saddle.<\/p>\n

\"\"The four winners of the Mongol Derby decided to cross the finish line together. From left, Anna Boden, Eisa Al Khayari, Khalifa Al Hamed and Michael Pollard. Kathy Gabriel Photos<\/p>\n

But when the time finally came to actually head to Mongolia, Michael had second thoughts. He had just gotten back from a very productive week training with John and Beezie Madden. \u201cI was really excited about continuing helping Sterling and the other kids at the barn, and I was really just not wanting to come,\u201d he said. \u201cAgain, my wife, like, kicked me in the bottom and said, \u2018Look, I really feel like this is going to be good for you. Go do it.\u2019 So, she was right,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

What he definitely didn\u2019t anticipate was actually being on the winner\u2019s podium at the end in a four-way tie for first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was literally an amazing experience. I mean, I\u2019ve done some hard things in my life, but it was certainly up there with that. It was the most emotional thing I\u2019ve ever done, that\u2019s for sure,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t have anything to do with the result. I mean, obviously the result is awesome. It\u2019s been incredibly amazing to do well and to do it with people [I rode with],\u201d he continued. \u201cBut the race itself was exactly what I had thought it might be years ago when I decided to try it, and it tested everything that I have done with horses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Billed as the longest and toughest horse race in the world, the Mongol Derby retraces the mounted relay route Genghis Khan established in 1224 to send messages across the Mongolian Empire. Competitors ride semi-wild native horses, changing mounts every 35 kilometers (21.7 miles), and cover 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) over the course of eight or nine days.<\/p>\n

Michael approached the race with what he called an \u201canti strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so competitive all the time with everything I do\u2014maybe too much so, sometimes\u2014and I really didn\u2019t want this to be that way,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He was well prepared, as far as his fitness and what he\u2019d decided to pack. When he arrived in Mongolia for the four days of training organizers do before the race, he focused on finding the most knowledgeable people he could. By chance, he ended up bunking next to Anna Boden, the 2022 winner of the Gaucho Derby, and partnered with her for most of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I realized how good she was at the things that I just didn\u2019t know anything about, I was like, \u2018OK, I gotta stick close to her for a little bit until I kind of figure out what\u2019s going on!\u2019 I kind of got my own navigation going by the third day, but then we connected again around day four, I think, and then we pretty much rode the rest of the rest of the way in together,\u201d Michael said.<\/p>\n

The physical endurance required to cover that many miles over rough terrain is a major aspect of the race, but the centerpiece\u2014the Mongolian horses\u2014present their own set of challenges. They don\u2019t really want to be touched, Michael said, and they definitely don\u2019t want you on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are broke, but it\u2019s like getting on like a young race horse or something\u2014you expect that you\u2019re going to get on and you\u2019re going to be moving right away, and you better be ready to go where you want to go,\u201d he said. The horses are bred for exactly this\u2014navigating the treacherous terrain with skill and speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say 60% of them, if they go out with a partner, they feel like the power is bottomless. If you look at the pictures, what I felt underneath me and then the pictures that I see are like two totally different things,\u201d he said. \u201cThe strongest horse that I rode felt like he could have been a five-star horse. And I look at the pictures of me riding him, and he looks like a pony. That thing did four different mountain pulls, 6 kilometers each, and he went up as fast as any event horse I\u2019ve ever ridden; it had to be like 550, 600 meters a minute up these mountains. And it never took a break. I would come slowly down\u2014when I say slowly, still like 25 [kilometers] down\u2014and then it would go again, and it would rock it up the next 5 or 6k mountain. I mean, I\u2019ve never felt anything like that, like it was insane.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI got off of that horse, and I told the organizer, \u2018It was worth the money to come here just to ride that horse.\u2019 That was one of the most amazing things I\u2019ve ever felt. It made me cry three times!\u201d Michael continued. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe that a horse that size had that much try. It was crazy. I\u2019ve very rarely ridden a horse like that, and I\u2019ve ridden amazing horses my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cThe strongest horse that I rode felt like he could have been a five-star horse. And I look at the pictures of me riding him, and he looks like a pony,\u201d said Michael Pollard.<\/p>\n

On the final day of the race, four riders were in contention\u2014Michael, riding for the U.S.; Boden, riding for Great Britain; and Eisa Al Khayari and Khalifa Al Hamed, riding for the United Arab Emirates. Although they started out the day together, Michael\u2019s horse got tired and he had to get off and walk alongside, so ended up five to 10 minutes behind the leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next horse I got on was just one of those ones that needed to be with another horse or it was just going to trot all the way,\u201d he said. He was about 20 minutes behind the leaders at the next station, and got a good horse and tried to make up time by not stopping to get food or water for himself, just consuming what he was carrying.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought if one of the two other guys had a rough horse, then I might be able to catch up, because mine was pretty fast,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThen I gave mine water and I got one more good run out of it, and I saw [the other riders] kind of waiting in the distance, and I thought, \u2018Oh no, I hope somebody\u2019s not hurt, or a horse is hurt.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out, as I got there, they were just waiting for me. They all had horses that had gotten pretty puffed out\u2014it was a really hot day\u2014and they had decided to go together, and they all sort of decided that they didn\u2019t want to do that without me. We had pushed each other to the limit, and I should just go with them. And, like, I just broke down. Honestly, I was already resigned to congratulate everybody and just be thankful for what I had been able to do, and that I could be there with them, and for them to to recognize the same effort that I put in and want to be with me was really, really beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just broke down. Honestly, I was already resigned to congratulate everybody and just be thankful for what I had been able to do, and that I could be there with them, and for them to to recognize the same effort that I put in and want to be with me was really, really beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Pollard<\/p>\n

It was a different type of victory than a top placing at a five-star event or a team medal, Michael said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was more like a test of all the things that I\u2019ve done in my whole life,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a physical exertion that I didn\u2019t really know what I was getting into. And then once I got into it, I realized that all the other stuff I\u2019d done was actually the perfect training for what I was now doing. So I\u2019m really proud of it, because I think it was a test of, like, total horsemanship, not just about getting ready for a specific competition or having a specific horse that\u2019s good at it. It\u2019s like, what can you do with very little support and 30 different types of horses to ride, like, right now, \u20181, 2, 3, go.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Michael said he was especially proud of being able to complete the race without any penalties, feeling that he kept the horses\u2019 best interests at heart, even when they conflicted with his own competitive ambitions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a gold medal, but it means a lot to me,\u201d he said. \u201cThe number of breakdowns and things that I had along the way, and then just resolving that I was never going to have a bad attitude. I was always going to stay as kind as I could with anybody that would offer help, anybody that needed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have been able to feel that I held my head high, even when things went wrong, I just am really proud of the whole thing,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt was so good for me. It just reaffirmed what I already knew about my love for horses and how healing they are for me in my life. It\u2019s just wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Michael Pollard sent off an application to participate in the Mongol Derby a couple of years ago,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-63998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}