Horses tied up at a hitching post.

We see horses everywhere in Mongolia. Virtually every Mongolian knows how to ride a horse. Most learn to ride when they can just barely walk. We saw a guy playing with an infant by placing it up on a horse, just getting the kid used to being up there. All the jockeys in the annual Naadam horse races are young kids.

One of our guides races and trains horses. He explains that Mongolia horses are stockier and stronger than U.S. horses. In a typical race, horses run a course 30 km (18 miles) long. Mongolian horses are usually allowed to run wild: their owners let the horses run free on the steppe for most of the year. When the owner eventually needs to use a horse, they catch it and break it; about a week later the horse is just barely docile enough to ride. The broken horses can still be quite ornery. Jan and a few other people from the group take some Mongolian horses for a ride around a small lake, and Jan's relieved to make it back in one piece.

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