When Autumn Clarke (15C) informed us that she and fellow equestrian team alum Jessica O’Quin (04C) were among 40 riders worldwide selected for the 2025 Mongol Derby, we were intrigued, to say the least.
“What’s the Mongol Derby?” you ask. Read on.
While the Kentucky Derby is known as “the fastest two minutes in sports,” the Mongol Derby boasts of being “the longest and toughest horse race in the world.” Spanning 10 days and 1,000 kilometers, this self-navigated trek across the Mongolian steppe tests riders’ horsemanship, directional skills and endurance during arduous 12-hour days spent atop a collection of horses selected by random draw, forcing competitors to regularly adapt their riding styles to the unfamiliar horse beneath them.
“Genetically, these horses are extremely similar to the ones used during Chinggis* Khan’s rule,” Clarke detailed. “That makes them far less domesticated than the horses we’ve been selectively breeding for so long in the Western world, but it also makes them incredibly intelligent and intuitive. There’s no forcing a Mongol horse to do anything.”
That proved gloriously (or maddeningly) true for O’Quin when her second horse on the first day of the race refused to go slower than a gallop for 35 kilometers.
“In my vain attempt to slow him down, I steered into a creek,” she recounted. “He was not fazed, and I soon found myself on a horse running down a wide creek in a sea of green grass with purple mountains on the horizon and a crane flying on either side of us. It felt like being alive.”
Clarke, left, and O’Quin at the 2025 Mongol Derby.
Both credit their time at Berry with helping prepare them to ride many different types of horses as intercollegiate shows often required them to compete on horses they’d not previously ridden – or even met – with Clarke expressing, “Riding on the team at Berry got me extremely comfortable with being uncomfortable when it comes to riding unknown horses.”
Horses remain centerstage back home, with Clarke focusing on leading riding lessons and training rides after retiring from nearly a decade of full-time work as a whipper-in for a fox hunting club in Monticello, Florida. O’Quin rides dressage when not serving as a corporate tax attorney living in Woodstock, Georgia. Might they one day gallop across the wilds of Mongolia once again? Stay tuned.
*Clarke requested that we use the Mongolian spelling when referencing the founder of the Mongol Empire to honor the proud history of the people who were so hospitable to her.
