Blake McCusker Horsemanship.

⭐️⭐️Not for the faint hearted⭐️⭐️

As it’s pretty much 12 months to the day I completed the Mongol Derby I thought I’d share some of my experiences of it on here.

The derby is 1000km race over 10 days across the Mongolian steppe, on the Mongolian horse … There small but tough, athletic and have unbelievable stamina and grit.. you change horses roughly every 40km, when you get there you pick numbers from a hat and get on the horse you draw and go again.

The horses aren’t for the faint hearted, don’t let there size and stature fool you, some of these are wild, crazy bastards and you’ve just got to along with them, there’s not much in the way of control… it’s a lucky dip what you draw, some are pretty wild and broncy others just bolt for the first 8 or 10km but some are quiet and you even have to nag them to get the miles done.

Each station has a vet that you have 30 minutes to get the horses heart rate down under 56 beats per min and he has to be sound and uninjured before you can draw your next horse… you have 12 hours from 7am to 7pm of riding time in which your basically going as fast as you can to keep in the race.

It’s about as tough a test of endurance, horsemanship and resilience I think you could get but worth every minute!

I’ll post more videos over the next few days… this was the first couple days.

derby

Nothing worse than standing at the bottom of the ramp begging the horse to go on the box 🥴

You won’t have that problem with DJ 😎

15 hand gelding, 3 years old.

Back in the day…. When my confidence outweighed my ability obviously 🤣

🐓🐓Rooster🐓🐓

Nice 3 year old I’ve been working with, he’s come a long way in a short time really.. But I will say ,horses like him definitely keep you on your toes, he’s doing well but he’s not there yet, looks can be deceiving, you make a mistake around Rooster, he’ll make you pay and he’s made me pay a couple of times 🤣

There’s one thing with horses, there very humbling animals.. Alot of times we get complacent with them, or think we know it all, but there very good at bringing you back down to earth, just quietly letting you know that your only on there back because there allowing it and you can be put off anytime they decide!

Horses like that generally get left to the wayside, people say there dangerous or no good.. there’s probably truth in both , but there the horses that can learn you the most about how to go about the job, there the ones that will humble you and make you take a step back, slow down a little and get a bit of respect for them…

For me, I sometimes need that and it’s a good thing.