Mongol Derby: Young Pakistani completes world's toughest horse race

A Pakistani, Saif Noon, completed the 1,000 kilometres race, Mongol Derby, billed as the toughest horse race in the world.

The race takes place on a terrain said to be the toughest one to pass, where riders are on sturdy Mongolian horses.

According to a post on Facebook by one of Saif’s relatives, he is the youngest participant who was luggage less in Ulaanbaatar city of Mongolia.

“His protective gear never made it to him [but] through the generosity of some of the other competitors he has cobbled together bits and pieces of riding gear and [was] carrying on,” the post stated.

A video on social media posted three days back, showed Saif speaking about how his horse threw him off three times.

“The first time it got scared by a cricket while eating some grass and decided to buck me off. The second time I was just walking down the mountain side it saw an empty plastic bottle, got freaked out by that and threw me off,” Saif said, smiling. “The third time I was trying to get back on it after the bottle incident, it started bucking again and kicked me off and after that I started riding again…but managed to stay on.”

Other than Saif’s photos and video, social media was abuzz with updates, his friends and relatives asking each other about the 18-year-old’s journey through the rough Mongolian terrain.

Fashion designer Kamiar Rokni took to Twitter to applauded the young boy’s courage.

Mongol Derby holds the Guinness World Record for World’s Longest Horse Race, where competitors can only race between dawn and dusk, stopping every 40km to change their horses.