All the Wild Horses

The long-distance horse race has proven fertile ground for Hollywood movies with rousing rides like Bite the Bullet (1975) and Hidalgo (2004) featuring glory-hunting adventurers busting a gut to overcome brutally unforgiving terrain and the forces of nature. Director Ivo Marloh's fascinating documentary tackles the real thing: the 1000km Mongol Derby, the longest and toughest horse race in the world. A re-creation of Genghis Khan's wilderness-spanning postal system, the challenge for riders is to navigate 27 stations, 40km apart, while avoiding injury, heat exhaustion, wolves and dangerously swollen rivers. Their steeds are wild Mongolian horses but the fact they must change mounts periodically (animal welfare is paramount here) adds an extra frisson of unpredictability. Young and old participants from around the world (Irish jockeys, a Canadian firefighter, a South African horse whisperer) test their mettle (at times a little too much) with broken limbs and broken dreams the unfortunate result for some. By embedding himself in the race, Marloh delivers an up-close-and-painful but enthralling chronicle of human/equine endurance, as well as a snapshot of the still-pastoral lives of Mongol locals. "This is the Wild frickin' West out here," says one weary rider, and he's not far wrong.