Magnolia man conquers epic Mongolian race

In June 33-year-old Justin Nelzen of Magnolia said he was going to ride the Mongol Derby to win it, and last month he did just that.

On Aug. 14, Nelzen crossed the finish line after spending a grueling eight days in the saddle covering 1,000 kilometers or more than 630 miles. With only three years of endurance horse racing under his belt the former Marine turned adventurist may have surprised some but not his mom.

“Since he was in Little League, Justin has always had a mind-set to win,” his mother, Tami Horton, said. “He would ask us what he needed to do, then go out and do it.”

The win

Nelzen is calm and gracious about winning the world’s longest horse race based on 13th century Genghis Khan carrier routes. He even calls second-place rider Saskia van Heeren of South Africa his partner.

“You can’t do something like this alone, you have to have a team,” Nelzen said. “By the third day of the race, for a lot of reasons, Saskia and I teamed up to go the distance. She is a strong competitor.”

Nelzen’s excitement becomes palpable when he recounts the epic race that took him across the wilds of Mongolia testing his survival skills in an extraordinary and demanding adventure.

“I went into it racing, but you get done and realize it is so much more,” Nelzen said.

The beauty of the countryside, called the steppe, combined with the hospitality of rural host families was so prized by Nelzen and van Heeren that they forfeited setting a new seven-day record for the race.

“On the last day we knew the competition was only a station behind — roughly 20 miles. So we rode out, hoping the third place rider would decide to call it quits and spend the night in [sic]. She did, and when we came riding back to our ger (tent), they were all surprised,”

Nelzen said he and van Heeren did not want their experience to end.

“There’s a huge anticlimax at the end. You just want it to go on,” he said. “Everything becomes so simple out in the steppe. You are focused on water, where you are on the route and whether or not you and your partner are doing well physically and mentally. Everything else is gone. I felt like I was in the 13th century”

“Doing well” became a crucial concern on Day 6 of the race when the lead pair ran into a challenge even Khan’s riders would have found difficult. A sudden hailstorm on the flats left the two with nowhere to go, and no way to protect their Mongolian mounts. Riders can be penalized if the prized nomadic horses do not pass their check-ups by station veterinarians. The storm threw Nelzen and van Heeren into near desperation for a long 30 minutes.

“It was a storm best described by Forrest Gump, ‘God showed up and He was mad.’ The native people said it was a torrential downpour of biblical proportions,” Nelzen said.

Not only did they endure and survive the storm but Nelzen and van Heeren managed to cover 40 kilometers (26 miles) in three hours before stopping at their next station. As soon as they were recovered and on fresh mounts the storm threw hail stones at them again.

“I’ve got to give Saskia credit. I asked her what she wanted to do, and she said ‘go on,’” Nelzen recalls “The horses we had for this stretch were true rock stars, they took us to the next station in two hours — that’s over 20 miles, beginning with a hailstorm, and they never stopped.”

The race

The Mongol Derby traverses more than 630 miles of punishing terrain. In the tradition of Khan’s supply and messenger carriers, Derby riders are given fresh horses every 26 miles or less. Descendants of the horses that gave Khan and his warriors superior advantage and helped establish the Mongol Empire make up the pool of 200 horses the Derby provides riders each year.

A network of 24 horse stations or urtuus hosted by nomad families is set up along the 1000-kilometer course. Maintaining the lead and being first to the stations like Nelzen and van Heeren were, meant pick of the herd — a good advantage for riders who know how to select the right mount.

“You learn real fast,” Nelzen said. “The first mount I chose was a stallion. That’s not something you want to do. He was fast then slow, a Naadam horse and they only race 10 to 15 kilometers; we had more than 20 kilometers to go.”

In the end, a theory Nelzen developed during the three days of pre-race training paid off. He would choose horses that showed signs of being ridden a lot, those that actually looked like work horses. On the final day his theory helped win him the race.

“Half the time I would take the horse my host chose, and half the time I would choose one,” Nelzen said. “But on the last day when I saw that their pick for me was a Naadam horse, I knew I didn’t want it. I saw one of the mounts that had taken us through the hailstorm. He had this look in his eye, I chose him and it paid off.”

The finish

Having agreed to finish the last leg of the race together, Nelzen and van Heeren started their final trek at an easy pace, but the deceptive terrain pulled one more trick on them before the end. What looked like flatlands near the finish was actually a series of five to six-foot drop-offs.

“The first one took me by surprise and I had to ride like ‘The Man From Snowy River,’ leaned back in the saddle with my arm in the air for balance,” Nelzen said. “A drop-off like that can be treacherous when it is unexpected.”

With race banners in sight, Nelzen and van Heeren sprinted to the finish line. Nelzen said it was close.

“We took a final look at each other, asked if we were ready, and let the horses go all out. It really didn’t matter who won at this point. Saskia came in just 40 to 50 feet behind me,” he said.

Next year

Nelzen was the first American to win the Mongol Derby, one of 16 who qualified from 10 countries. He has been asked to return and uphold his title next year for the race’s third annual installment. With registration due in January 2011, Nelzen said he will compete if he can raise the $9,800 entry fee.

The Mongol Derby is a charitable event, raising money for the care, education and preservation of the indigent Mongolian people, their traditions and their horses. For more information visit, mongolderby.theadventurists.com. To contact Nelzen visit, teamequipro.com.