PrintHer home country’s rich horse culture helped Tserenbaljir Baatartogtokh prepare for the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association.
Tserenbaljir Baatartogtokh had no delusions about her chances of snagging a spot on the Dartmouth College IHSA equestrian team when she first arrived in New Hampshire last fall. “Baljir,” as her American friends now call her, knew her riding résumé was thin. She’d never seen a hunter seat equitation show, attempted a posting trot or even sat on a non-Mongolian horse.
But the 21-year-old rider from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, had a serious love for horses, so she figured she could pick up the rest as she went along. And she was right. Now, eight months later, Baljir is Dartmouth’s most enthusiastic team member, and her childhood experiences in Mongolia are a surprising boon to a college halfway around the world.
Growing up in a city in north central Mongolia didn’t afford Baljir many riding opportunities as a child, and she wasn’t the typical horse-crazy little girl. But she loved attending races, and somewhere along the way she caught the riding bug.
“I think I grew more fond of horses as I grew older,” Baljir explained. “As a child it was more something fun to do, but as you grow older you think about it in terms of why you like it and what makes it great and what it means to you and your culture.”
In the summertime Baljir would occasionally travel to the countryside to ride borrowed horses, but the opportunities were infrequent.
“There isn’t much formal training, so I’d just get on and gallop around the steppes, which are the fields of Mongolia,” she said. “We don’t have any sea access—we’re surrounded by Russia and China—but I call the steppes our ocean. To gallop across them is just the best feeling.”
Horses have been a part of Mongolian culture for thousands of years. Semi-wild herds roam the steppes, and nomadic families follow them and care for them.
July marks the annual festival Naadam, a celebration of the nomadic culture that consists of horse racing, archery and wrestling. Children serve as jockeys, and races measure anywhere between 6 to 20 miles, depending on the age of the horses.
“In Mongolia, horses have spiritual meaning,” Baljir explained. “They’re worshipped and loved. Here, a lot of people don’t care much for horses unless they’re specifically involved. In Mongolia, you can have a discussion with anyone about them.”
In contrast to the United States, where the membership in national equestrian organizations is predominantly female, riding in Mongolia is seen as masculine. The horses are small, half-wild and considered dangerous, and that stigma was hard for Baljir’s parents to forget.
“My dad wasn’t too keen about me riding at first,” she admitted. “He associated it with how horseback riding is at home—very dangerous. He thought [that because American] horses were huge, there was even more risk.”
But as Baljir explained that the team’s horses were much quieter and more domesticated, her parents grew more supportive of her riding.
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