By Connor Lynch
INKERMAN — An Eastern Ontario horse farmer trekked halfway around the world to ride a Mongolian horse almost 500 km across Mongolia’s Gobi Desert.
The annual endurance race, the Gobi Cup, invites only 20 riders per year to participate. Lorie Duff, who raises and trains horses at Inkerman, south of Winchester, got the invite this year to participate in the 10-day, 480-km endurance race on the back of a half-wild Mongolian horse.
The race has a personal touch for Duff. Her daughter Callie was diagnosed last year with a skin disease, and Duff has been raising donations for every kilometre she completes. The former professional horse show racer switched careers to training horses after a spinal injury.
In an email to Farmers Forum, from somewhere in the Gobi Desert, she said: “I want to show all the children at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario that sometimes things are hard and you have to endure many things but if you love life you can keep going!”
It was day two of the 10-day race. So, when asked how she was doing, she replied: “Still in the race and holding my own.”
