Jockey Dreams Can End in Injury Or Death

Ride a horse, ride a horse in the winter, ride a horse in the coldest city on Earth. Mongolian children as young as five years-old ride horses for distances of 20 kilometers, running at speeds of 30 miles per hour or more. All told, hundreds of brave-hearted child jockeys will race for competitions this February. The horse trainer is trying to win prizes, and honor is important, but children love and understand their horse sincerely said 12 year-old child jockey, Naran.

Frozen horse racing competitions

Recently, the capital city’s weather reached more than -20 degrees Celsius during the day, and -30 degrees Celsius at night. UB Post asked 40 year-old Italian traveler and father of three, Matteo Lafti about winter in Ulaanbaatar, He said, “This morning I nearly froze when waiting for the bus or taxi for around ten minutes in front of my guesthouse. My eyelashes and hair were covered with hoar and frost.

“My cheeks were feeling numb and when I saw that a bus was coming, I felt like meeting my best friend who I had seen a long time ago.” UB Post told him that Mongolia is completely frozen during the winter season across the entire territory. If you spit outside in Uvs Province, your saliva will be frozen before it reaches the ground, and it can be painful to breathe in the cold air.

Uvs is the coldest province, where temperatures can reach -50 degrees Celsius in the winter, located in the west of the country, 1,336 km away from Ulaanbaatar.

We asked Matteo what he would say if a horse trainer offered him one thousand USD for his six or seven year old child to ride a horse in a 20 kilometer race in -20 degree Celsius weather. It is not just riding a horse, it is horseracing, which means riding a horse at top speed and riding to win prize money. He said, “Nobody would ever accept that suggestion and would call you a crazy idiot, or some parents might beat you just for your proposal.”

You never hear of this kind of story in any other country in the world except Mongolia. After every Tsagaan Sar festival, Mongolians organize horse racing competitions. After the newspapers and television stations announce how many child jockeys died during the races, we see that too many children are injured on horseback or by cars following the races. Sometimes, it’s hard to distinguish between the dangers of the cars or the racing, because there are often too many cars among the horses. These cars are sometimes race inspectors, but also spectators. They are...