Pat rides the Mongol Derby '15 for Kiwi Care Team

$11,756 of $10,000 goal

Given by 55 generous donors in around 9 months

Help make a difference to the lives of working horses by sponsoring me in this, the world's toughest, longest horse race!

Waikato

This August I am entering an epic race that is staged each year across 1000km of the Mongolian Steppe. The Mongol Derby is a modern incarnation of Ghengis Khan’s horse messenger system, which he originally set up in 1224 to deliver military intelligence at breakneck speed across the empire. This is the place where the domestication of the wild horse began almost 6000 years ago.

35 riders from around the world will completely expose themselves to the elements of the High Steppe for the duration of the Derby and over 10 days face extremes of temperature, storms, high winds, and blistering sun. But this isn’t an endurance race for the horses; riders stop every 40km to change their semi-wild steeds at stations run by Mongolian families. Mongol horses are one of the smallest of the species, but they are seriously tough. Mongolian warriors rode the same breed to conquer a kingdom stretching from Beijing to Baghdad. Not only are they tough, these horses are feral! It's a shame I haven't done much riding since I was a kid, as most of my competitors will be semi-professional riders. Therefore my main aim is to finish the race in one piece and return to the foaling season without any permanent injuries!

I’m the resident horse vet at a successful racehorse stud in New Zealand called Windsor Park. The fact that Rodney, the boss has given me time off during the busy foaling season to compete in this crazy race is an incredible thing. He knows how important mad adventures are to me, but mostly he knows how important the charity I’m supporting is to me.

A big thank you to Randlab and Strategy-T (www.virbac.co.nz/strategy-t), my gold sponsors. Randlab provides veterinary products to Australasia, and go above and beyond their duty to support the industry and equine welfare. Strategy-T is an excellent broad spectrum dewormer that I trust. NZVP provide gold-standard laboratory services to the NZ vet industry and are also kind sponsors of my Mongol Derby effort.

Patrick Sells' involvement (page creator)

Kiwi Care Team is a New Zealand-based charity that gives help to working horses in poor countries. I’ve been doing this kind of charitable work in some of the world’s poorest countries since I qualified as a vet 8 years ago. Millions of poor people rely on their working animals to scratch an existence in the developing world. By improving the welfare of these animals we can improve productivity. We can therefore enhance human welfare by reducing poverty; by helping animals we can support sustainable livelihoods so that they no longer need rely on hand-outs.

The money raised by this Mongol Derby effort will help to fund equipment, medicines and training that will directly benefit the working horses of Fiji.