I Entered the Longest Horse Race on Earth at 52 Years Old: 1,000 Kilometers Across Mongolia on 25 Half-Wild Horses. On Day Six, I Had to Choose Between Winning and a Stranger

So she walked.

Six kilometers. In hail, then in rain, then in wind that came across that plain like a train. I led both our horses with one hand and held her good arm with the other. When she stumbled, I caught her. When she wanted to sit down, I told her stories about Nebraska cattle until she was so annoyed she kept walking just to get away from my voice.

It took us two and a half hours.

When we got close, a dog came out barking. Then a boy of about ten. Then a man in a long blue coat, and behind him a woman, and behind her a grandmother who took one look at Saskia’s face and started shouting orders in Mongolian.

In five minutes, Saskia was lying on a bed inside the ger, wrapped in blankets, next to an iron stove burning dried dung, drinking hot salty milk tea from a bowl.

The grandmother put her hands on Saskia’s shoulder. Felt it. Looked at me. Said something.

The boy translated, in school English.

“Grandmother says the shoulder is out. She says she can put it back. She does it for horses.”

Saskia looked at me. I looked at her.

“She’s a veterinarian,” I said. “So are you. Professional courtesy.”

Saskia laughed, and while she was laughing, the grandmother pulled.

There was a sound like a cork coming out of a bottle.

Saskia screamed.

And then she stopped screaming, and sat up, and moved her arm, and stared at the old woman.

“That’s better than the orthopedic surgeon in Utrecht,” she said.

The family fed us mutton dumplings and fermented mare’s milk, which tasted like yogurt that had joined the army. The boy asked me if I had a big ranch in America. I said I did. He asked if I had cowboys. I said I was the cowboy. He didn’t believe me until I roped his little brother’s goat.

At 2 a.m., the satellite phone rang.

It was the race director.

“Mr. Crane. We have a problem. Under race rules, riders who stop to help another rider are given time back. But you left the course and went to an unofficial station. The rules committee is meeting at dawn.”

“And?”

“They’re going to disqualify you.”