Sally Jellison, right, Muncy, PA, competes in the Mongol Derby
“Wherever you go,” Confucius said, “go with all your heart.” Go with courage and an open heart. Go with a willingness to learn and to challenge what you think you know for sure. There are people who go places and look at the world. And then there are those who accept Confucius’ challenge and go with all their hearts—embracing the experience and seeing the world. People like Sally Jellison, an endurance rider from Muncy, PA.
“I had just been in a really bad accident and had a broken back and broken neck and was lying on the couch for a long time throughout the winter of 2017-2018. I needed a goal to get me out of my depression and I couldn’t think of a better more unrealistic, goal than competing in the Mongol Derby,” she says. The Mongol Derby. In Mongolia. A 1,000 km race across the steppes, tracing the ancient messenger routes created by Genghis Khan in 1224.
The Road Back
The organizers of the Mongol Derby call it the longest and toughest horse race in the world. They point out that it is not a pony ride or a guided tour. “There’s no marked course, no packed lunches, no beds to sleep in. That’s the whole point. It’s just you, your team of horses and a thousand kilometers of Mongolian wilderness.”
It was just the kind of challenge Jellison could embrace. “I signed up for the Derby, got myself back into shape, riding as many horses as I could—young horses, green horses, difficult horses,” she says, even as she was dealing with the trepidation about getting back on a horse. “It got me off the couch after that horrific accident. I was dealing with ‘oh my gosh now I’m scared of riding.’ I just couldn’t bear the thought of not riding. Having that Mongol Derby goal was a good thing. I lost weight, got back in shape, started running again.”
She says that endurance sports are part of her DNA. She had been active in long distance sports like running and swimming, so endurance riding came naturally to her. “As a runner I kind of trained myself—this may sound a little nutty—to test my ability to recognize pain versus discomfort and to identify the difference. Is this discomfort or do I need to stop?” She had been testing her limits in endurance riding since 2005, so the Mongol Derby seemed like a good match for her adventurous streak.
Unfinished Business
Jellison flew to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, in August 2019. She was primed for an adventure and understood that unpredictability was baked into the race. The organization that runs the Mongol Derby, Adventurists, leaves a lot to the imaginations of those who are contemplating signing up for the race. “You tackle up to 1,000 km of Mongolian steppe on semi-wild horses, changing steeds every 40 km. You navigate and survive on your own wits and skill, living among the herders. It’s you and your horse versus the wild.” So, there you go. And there, fearlessly, went Jellison.
The first two days they spent at base camp where they met the first group of Mongolian horses and were able to ride them a bit. Each rider also got a GPS unit to help them navigate from one horse station to the next. “Even though I was a navigator in the Navy, I wasn’t familiar with how to use the GPS,” she explains. “Especially when you’re on a wild horse galloping across the steppes. I would pull out my glasses, check my position, turn the horse around.”
“I actually know the owner of the company (that runs the Derby),” she says. “He is English and they were brainstorming things that would be attractive to thrill-seekers” when they struck on the idea of the Mongol Derby. “You’re literally getting on a different horse every 25 miles,” she says, and not every horse is equally interested in competing. “Some of the horses are somewhat broke and some of the horses have barely ever had a saddle on their backs.” She says that she got some good horses, and some that just didn’t want to run. “I did a lot of running with my horse. That gets pretty old, but I was satisfied with my performance. I never came off a horse!”
The race begins with a mass start. All the riders take off and Jellison says that some riders lasted less than a minute in their saddles. Besides rainy and cold weather, there were other hazards riders had to contend with. Like marmot holes that could trip the horses. She had been advised to just stay on the horse—the Mongolian horses know how to deal with the holes. “I was chased by wild dogs at one point, and I was on several horses that bolted. They seemed to have inner radar that kept them moving in the right direction.”
Food was another issue, and Jellison says that virtually everything was mutton-based—from soups to stews to other fare she couldn’t really identify. “I decided early on that I was not going to eat. It’s better for your body not to eat than to introduce something that would make you ill.” She said that there were occasionally noodles, which she did eat, and some sort of hard bread that she chewed on while riding. She made sure she stayed hydrated, though.
She said that there was a curfew, and all riders had to stop riding. Since each rider also had a satellite tracker, the race organizers knew where everyone was. If they were not near the yurts (the tents where the riders could stay for the night), they just camped on the steppes. “One time I stayed with a nice Mongolian family,” she says. She had started to feel a little squeamish and went outside. “I honored them by throwing up outside their yurt. They were very concerned about me.”
The camaraderie among the riders was great, she says, even though they were technically all competing against each other. There were several other riders Jellison’s age and she says they bonded during the training period in what they referred to as the “nerd yurt,” in contrast to the party yurts where the younger riders stayed. “I was surrounded by riders that were much better than I was,” she says. “I had good luck and I think my training program was a good one.” Her good luck ran out before she was able to finish the race, though.
“I was very close to completion,” she says. “I did about 80 per cent of it.” She says she was the oldest woman in the field, and the organizers were very concerned about her. “Every day they would go find me and ask me how I was doing, take my blood pressure and my vitals.” She says that on one of the checks, they found that her blood pressure had gone up and they were concerned that it was too high. Out of an abundance of caution, they pulled her out of the race. “Now I feel like I’ve got unfinished business out there.”
The Day That Changed Everything
Jellison was working in Manhattan on 9/11. “I was one of those people who watched the towers fall,” she said. She began to cry as she recalled the day and all that she saw. It haunts her still. “There are no words to describe what happened that day. I was one of the lucky ones. After that, I realized I had put off a lot of things in my life that I wanted to do, and I better stop making excuses and start doing what I wanted to do.”
She started riding again, and, as she describes herself, “I had a tendency to be a really aggressive trail rider.” She says she would go out for four-hour trail rides. “I ran into some people who were involved in foxhunting.” She says she was immediately addicted to it. “I adored it. It put together all the elements I loved—it was purposeful aggressive riding.”
When the family moved back to Pennsylvania, a friend invited her to go to a 25-mile endurance ride. The friend decided to sign them up for a 50-mile ride instead. And just like that, a new endurance rider was born.
Jellison lives with her husband John Dugan and 17-year-old daughter, Charly—herself an international endurance competitor—on a farm that has been in her husband’s family for generations. “J&S farms also has a location in Morriston, FL,” she says. “We buy and sell field hunters and endurance horses, and we also have a mentoring program where we can assist people who want to get started in endurance.” She says that Charly represents the fifth generation of Dugan’s who have lived on the farm.