From auspicious horse-themed phrases and couplets to whether your luck is in, check out our Year of the Horse 2026 series to discover all you need to know about the coming Lunar New Year.
In Mongolia, horses are not just animals – they embody the nation’s spirit.
Horse racing is an integral part of Mongol culture. The bond between man and equine is formed through trust and skill on the open steppe.
“The philosophy of Mongolian horse racing is distilled into a simple, sacred principle: a horse cannot win without its jockey,” says D’Artagnan Giercke, director of the Genghis Khan Retreat, which organises an annual international polo tournament on its grounds within the Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape, a Unesco World Heritage site in central Mongolia.
For centuries, horsemanship has been a pillar of Mongolian culture.
“It is a huge honour to be chosen [to be a jockey],” Gierke says. “You have a lot of kudos if you are successful.”
However, it is not just adults who ride in Mongolia’s most celebrated festivals and races – children do too.
While child jockeys are revered as custodians of nomadic heritage, their participation in gruelling, high-stakes races raises questions over how to preserve an ancient tradition while ensuring child safety.
Dorjpalam Battumur, known as Palam, is a member of the Mongolian national polo team. He started racing at four. Now 27, he remembers the decision being very straightforward: “My father told me I was ready to race and told me to get on the horse.”
Today, at events such as the National Naadam Festival, where children’s horse racing is a premier event, these young riders are celebrated as national heroes, bringing glory to their families and communities.
Winners are bestowed with titles like tumny ekh, meaning “leader of 10,000”, and their families are given prizes ranging from medals to livestock – and most importantly, prestige.
The reason children are chosen to compete has to do with their relative lightness and agility, which is seen as an advantage when riding the small, sturdy Mongolian horses.
Battumur says that as a child, training was woven into his daily routine. He would herd sheep in the morning before practising on his racehorse in the afternoon. Though there were especially long days, the joy of riding overshadowed those “minor problems”.
“The most important thing for me was that I was happy. Only the strong kids become child jockeys,” he says.
“Racing gave me a lot more than it took from me.”
Dolgorsuren Batoyun, known as Doda, is the first and only woman on the Mongolian national polo team. She also started racing at the age of four and similarly has fond memories of horse racing as a child.
“I was never really afraid of being on a horse because of my love for the race,” she says.
“Seeing my father enjoy, ride and love his horses made me fall in love with them. These children are the inheritors of the cultures and customs.”
However, a booming semi-professional racing circuit has evolved beyond traditional festivals.
According to Natasha Fijn, director of the Mongolia Institute at the Australian National University, profits are corrupting the custom, making what is supposed to be “a family event and a celebration of horses” no longer safe.
“There [is a new kind of racing] with wealthy politicians and businesspeople owning racehorses and pushing for the racing to become more like the global industrial racehorse industry,” Fijn says.
“They have been importing fast breeds, such as the Thoroughbred or Arab, and have been interbreeding with the ancient Mongolian horse.
“It becomes more about winning and the competition, and the whole dynamic between human and horse changes.”
This commercialisation has intensified the pressure on young riders, turning a cultural practice into a high-stakes business where children’s welfare can be secondary to profit.
“Horse racing events have evolved from the traditional festive culture into a highly commercialised profit-oriented activity that takes place not only in summer but throughout the year,” says Amaraa Dorjsambuu, a child protection specialist who works with Unicef Mongolia. “Children face a high level of risk of various injuries and fatalities.”
In 2022, the minimum age for horse riders was raised from seven to eight, and protective gear is now required to be worn. Meanwhile, a growing number of educational non-governmental organisations are running campaigns to link children’s school attendance – or lack thereof – with their racing eligibility.
Batoyun and Battumur say that the most difficult part of being a child jockey was riding on slippery roads during the colder months. But this is no longer a problem, following the government’s ban on races from October to February.
But while Mongolia has enacted around 80 child-specific provisions across its legal code, this patchwork of regulations has failed to establish a robust, unified framework capable of fully protecting the rights of child jockeys, according to a 2015 Unicef study.
The dangers are multilayered. Beyond the sheer youth of the riders, risks stem from extreme weather, the innate unpredictability of the horses themselves, and the often chaotic organisation of spring races, factors that even the most skilled and experienced trainers cannot control.
Medical records and clinic research reveal that child jockeys face acute physical risks, including head trauma, fractures, frostbite and internal injuries, while psychologists note their mental well-being is also at stake, heavily influenced by their circumstances.
Additionally, intense training and racing schedules, especially during the summer months, frequently pull children away from their education. Many come from rural families where the immediate economic reward of racing outweighs the abstract value of schooling.
In recent years, Batoyun has observed changes in laws and regulations that are “better for both jockeys and the horses”.
“My family and also Mongolians in general have always had great respect for the rider kids. We always consider the children’s safety,” she says.
For herders from the Orkhon Valley like Batoyun and Battumur, their bond with the horses is lifelong, an intimate partnership that begins in childhood and defines their identity.
“The horses know these family members from birth until death,” Fijn says. “When a special racehorse dies, the skull is placed at a prominent place, at a rock cairn at the top of a mountain, for instance, recognising that horse and the families have joint ties with the land.
“[It is a symbol of how] they coexist together in a joint place that both humans and horses return to as home. Children from herding families grow up with a pride in the horses in the family.”
BY
Chloe Loung is a reporter at the Post. She previously worked as a staff writer for TimeOut Hong Kong, where she covered dining and food media as well as social trends in Hong Kong.

Published Date:2025-12-17