The Mongolian people are some of the most kind, generous and hospitable people I have ever come across. Just before lunch the team of handlers and jockeys brought out four horses. Emmeline, Henry, Carol and I were gifted a horse each to have as our own whenever we are in Mongolia. Horses are not traditionally named in Mongolia but as it is tradition in Europe we had consent to name them. Henry named his ‘no name’, Emmeline named hers Adam, Carol named hers Luke Skywalker and I named mine Batkhishig. Each name had a meaning.
Wild horses are extinct. Horses out in the wild today are feral horses that have originated from horses that were domesticated. To improve our understanding of the origin of the horse, and its adaptations as it migrated across Asia in to Europe, we must understand the closest living relative to these extinct wild horses. Horses were originally domesticated in Mongolia therefore the Mongolian horse breed is the closest relative to the wild horse. The name Adam from Adam and Eve is therefore a very apt name.
Tengrism is a Central Asian religious belief. Munkh Khgukh Tengri (Eternal Blue Sky) is the mother of earth and spirit to which the Mongols pray. Tengri sustains existence and is the holy spirit of the sky. ‘Sky’ was therefore the most important part of Luke Skywalkers’ name.
Batkhishig was named after the champion jockey who had trained and gifted my horse to me.
After lunch we continued with the sampling, moving around to various corrals on the ranch. I learnt that one of the most difficult parts of research is defining the different populations/groups. We have three different groups here: Mongolian racing horses, Mongolian riding horses and mixed breed racing horses. It is difficult to group these populations prior to talking to the trainers. The racing populations will also have sub-groups depending on whether the horse is a champion, raced or unraced. Once we had established this, earlier in the day, it made it much easier to collect the information.
As we had a massive team of people with us we pushed on until 7.30pm to sample the horses from the Mongolian riding horse population. These horses are not handled as much so took longer to catch; better to sample them today whilst we still had our A-team.
I have to say this is a day I will never forget! 10 hours later we had sampled a whopping 90 horse. We were all ecstatic that we had managed to sample so many. Broad grins could be seen on every face including the handlers whose t-shirts were also covered in stickers.
