Rough Magic

Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race

Lara Prior-Palmer

You gotta love when a potentially ill-advised idea evolves into a page-turning memoir. Kudos to author and adventurer Lara Prior-Palmer for doing something very unexpected so the rest of us don’t have to.

According to Lara Prior-Palmer’s description of her former self, she was a bored and directionless 19-year-old trying to figure out what she could do with the summer of 2013 — and maybe her life — when an advertisement caught her eye.

The ad was for the Mongol Derby, a 1,000-kilometer horse race around the Mongolian countryside. It’s typically described with words like ‘rugged’ and ‘daunting’ — more than 600 miles of steppes and mountains with ever-changing weather and tricky navigation. Each rider races as fast as their level of risk assessment allows, trading for a new horse every 40 kilometers (25 miles). The horses have minds of their own; they can and do throw their riders and run off, leaving the rider far from… everything. About 30 people participate in the race each year, only about half of the entrants cross the finish line.

An official description of the race reads, ‘Before you consider applying for this race, we want to point out how dangerous the Mongol Derby is. By taking part in this race, you are greatly increasing your risk of severe physical injury or even death… The Mongol Derby is an extremely physically demanding and dangerous race and holds the title as the toughest horse race in the world for good reason.’

But Lara Prior-Palmer didn’t read that text, nor was she particularly worried about her lack of training or experience. She submitted her application. She got on her horse. And to everyone’s surprise — literally, everyone’s, including her own — Prior-Palmer not only finished the race, she won it. She became the first woman to win and the youngest person ever to finish. This book is the story of that triumph.

Prior-Palmer comes across as a very normal 19-year-old: She’s awkward. She’s honest about how unpleasant she found some of the experience. She never thinks she will win until she does — and her primary motivation seems to have been how much the woman in first place was annoying her. Prior-Palmer writes about coming home and wondering if she’s different. She thinks, ‘Maybe?’ All of which is quite endearing.

This is a fun read, a bigger-than-life exploit in the company of a very down-to-earth author. This time spent with Lara Prior-Palmer is a very good hang.

Other than for conquering (territorially, economically, or psychologically), I’m not sure why we ever try to get an idea about countries as a whole. We find our own countries too complicated to define, and that must be the truth about other countries, too: imaginary and secretly borderless, they bleed into their neighboring seas and lands, impossible to fully catch. — Lara Prior-Palmer

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