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

The helicopter came at seven in the morning. It landed beside the ger and took Saskia to the hospital in Ulaanbaatar for X-rays. Before she climbed in, she hugged me with her good arm.

“I’ll fix this,” she said. “Don’t you dare quit.”

I didn’t quit.

I was disqualified from the official standings at 9 a.m.

I rode the last four days anyway.

Unofficially. No ranking. No medal. Just me and nine more half-wild Mongolian horses and a thousand kilometers of grass and sky that I will never be able to describe to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

On the last day, I crossed the finish line in a valley full of wildflowers, nine hours after the winner.

There was a crowd.

Bigger than for the winner.

The riders were all there. The race crew. Herder families from three stations. And standing in front of them all, with her arm in a proper sling, was Saskia van Dijk, who had made a phone call from the hospital to every rider in the race and told them what happened on day six.

The race director walked up to me with a small wooden box.

“The rules committee met again last night,” he said. “Officially, you’re still disqualified. But every year we give one award that has nothing to do with the clock. It’s for the rider who best shows the spirit of the steppe.”

Inside the box was a silver horse-head pendant on a leather cord.

“We’ve never given it to a rider who finished last,” he said.

My son Tyler had flown in for the finish. He was standing at the back of the crowd, crying like a little boy, filming everything on his phone.

That night, the herder family from the storm drove three hours in an old Russian van to bring me a gift. A bowl of salty milk tea. The grandmother pressed it into my hands and said something in Mongolian.

Tyler asked the interpreter what she’d said.

The interpreter smiled.

“She says your horses ran slow,” he said, “but your heart ran fast.”

I wear the silver horse every day now, back in Nebraska, under my work shirt.

Tyler says it’s the stupidest, best thing I’ve ever done.

He’s already signed me up for next year.