Gobi Gallop

Just 12 years ago, however, Veloo had never been astride a horse. She tried it for the first time at age 50 when she and her husband, Chelvan Veloo, first moved to Mongolia.

“I was already learning the language,” says Julie. “I realized if I was going to understand this culture and history, I was going to have to sit on a horse. I thought, ‘If these kids can do it, how hard can it be?’ Twenty-however-many times of falling off later—it can be hard! But I was determined to ride.”

Her persistence paid off, and by 2013, she and a group of six friends rode 707 kilometers for fun across the Gobi Desert over nine days, in what officially became known as the inaugural Gobi Gallop.

The idea of a making it a fundraiser in subsequent years added purpose to it, with international riders participating and raising extra money for the Veloo Foundation, averaging roughly $75,000 each year.

Specifically, the Veloos’ Children of the Peak recipient charity aims to stop survival garbage dump-scavenging before it becomes generational. Partnering with M. Batsaikhan (Baagii) and B. Sarantuya (Saraa) of Horse Trek Mongolia, they created and implemented it together.

Blue Wolf Totem Expedition

The 10 years of success with the Gobi Gallop developed into a more ambitious adventure: the cross-Mongolia, three-month Blue Wolf Totem Expedition ride.

“I tried to get everything in: the pre-history, the Silk Road, Genghis Khan, the eagle hunters, the reindeer people, deer stones, and burial sites,” says Julie. “Archaeology lives on the land here. And you can still go out and see it. Anywhere else on the planet [that] would be fenced off.”

The 17 riders, ranging in age from 27 to 70, were accompanied by some 20 support crew and a herd of around 40 horses, which were often contracted from local herdsmen. Riders averaged 50 km per day (31 miles) with a day off every 10 days, and rode through the Gobi desert, the steppes, the Altai mountains, glaciers and enormous valleys, visiting with all five Mongolian tribes.

Full of Surprises

For Australian endurance and dressage rider Duncan McLaughlin, everything fell into place as though the ride was meant to be.

“I was intrigued by the long ride in pretty country,” he says. “I was always interested in different aspects of horsemanship, so I thought it would be really interesting to go to the home of horsemanship to learn more about the horse culture there.

“Once the Mongolian horses get going down the trail, they’re really steady, so sensible, and hyper-aware of their surroundings, even though they seem super quiet.”

As for the people, McLaughlin was surprised.

“It’s a very showy culture,” he says. “You think they’re going to be subdued because you think of Genghis Khan and that stern, very self-contained face. But they’re very flamboyant people. And that big blue sky. It’s phenomenal.”

Self-Discovery

Endurance and trail rider and horse trainer Jill McKenzie of Georgia (USA) felt the pull to visit Mongolia when she saw a fellow endurance rider astride a reindeer in Mongolia. Her research revealed the Veloo Foundation and the Gobi Gallop.

She applied and qualified to ride in that event, but when the Blue Wolf Totem Expedition was announced, she knew she had to participate.

“I wanted to grow and stretch myself, both in my riding and personally,” says McKenzie.

Visiting with the reindeer people was one of her most spectacular memories.

“Riding up to the reindeer people was magical,” she recalls. “We felt like we were on top of the world because it was so high up. You’d see this beautiful, colorful tepee surrounded by holly bushes and wild oak, and then all around you were these beautiful white reindeer. I did get to ride one. It was amazing!

“I learned a lot about myself,” McKenzie continues. “In times of trials, I have a lot of discipline.”

For many riders, one big challenging issue was chafing from riding in the traditional Mongolian saddles.

“We came up with ‘Chafe for Charity,’” she laughs. “I’ve done hard things, but I’m tougher than I thought. And the camaraderie was amazing. I felt a kinship at different times with different people. The 17 of us are bonded for life because of what we went through together.”

McKenzie gained great respect for the Mongolian horse.

“I would consider this the capstone to my horse career,” she says.

Escape to Mongolia

Endurance rider Heidi Telstad of British Columbia, Canada, had yearned to get back to Mongolia ever since winning the Mongol Derby in 2016.

“The Mongol Derby is such an exciting event, but definitely fast-paced, so I felt like I missed out on the Mongolian culture and beauty,” she says. At 1,000 km (621 miles), that race is deemed the longest in the world. “This three-month trek sounded like an opportunity to finally fulfill that dream.”

With an excess of stress at home, Telstad was looking for an escape. She found it in this epic adventure.

“Highlights were getting to see every inch of Mongolia,” she says. “If you ever want to really see a country, ride horses across it. The most magical [sight] was coming upon this huge sand dune in northwest Mongolia. There was a river running underneath it!”

The Last Day of the Mongolian Trek

Even for Julie—who figures she has now ridden more than 50,000 career miles—the wonderment of this long expedition never wore off, even though she knew exactly what was coming up ahead of the group.

“Every day, it would get better and better,” she says. “The route was so spectacular. The last full day of riding, we were heading up to the highest peak in Mongolia. You start in this big open valley along the Milk River, which flows from the glacier at the end point, surrounded by towering mountains. You can feel the echoes of history, and that humanity has used this valley for these amazing spiritual purposes since forever.

“I was out of my mind with how incredible it was,” she continues. “It is magic beyond comprehension.”

On this final day, the group crossed the 3,600-km mark.

“I was riding by myself, because you know it’s coming to an end, but it’s such an incredible crescendo,” Julie says. “And I didn’t really expect that it was going to be such a big thing to cross 3,600 kilometers, but when it actually happened—when this random number ticked over on the GPS, and you know you pulled it off—it’s indescribable. Everybody’s had this unimaginable, spiritual, completely mind-altering time. You’re in this pristine wilderness, and everyone started crying and hooting and hollering at the fact that we had done it.”

Crowning the event was the charity aspect of helping people in need.

“We raised just under $150,000,” Julie says. “It’s an amazing thing to go do something like this and to help kids at the same time. Now we have two kindergartens, a summer camp, community library, and a sewing center. We provide employment for [approximately] 40 people, and this money will help continue these projects.”

The post Mongolia Trek on Horseback for Charity appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Towslee’s horse-crazy life started with backyard horses in Washington state.

“We always had horses from the time I can remember,” she says. “I was riding from before I could walk.”

She competed in hunter/jumper events until her junior year in high school, then convinced a racehorse breeder that she knew how to break colts.

“I lied and said I’d done it before, and fumbled my way through it, breaking a set of colts for her,” Towslee recalls. “Her husband trained racehorses, and I ended up going to the racetrack after that and grooming horses. Later that year, I started galloping them.”

Big Screen Serendipity

She spent the next decade as a gallop girl and assistant trainer at racetracks around the country. While in New Mexico outriding and galloping horses on tracks, breaking horses, and running a training stable, Towslee stumbled upon stunt horse training. Or, rather, it stumbled into her.

“I got into it completely by accident,” she says. “A friend of ours had been working on a movie job, and they needed some horses that looked like racehorses but were broke. All of my outriding horses were old racehorses, so they could still gallop around, but you’d say whoa and they’d put on the brakes. They were perfect because it was a racehorse-based teen drama, Wildfire. I started wrangling and renting horses to them and doing stunts.”

Wildfire ended after four seasons, and Towslee moved on to managing a breeding farm. She turned down a couple of stunt horse trainer jobs because she felt obligated to the breeding farm owners.

Then The Lone Ranger (released in 2013, starring Johnny Depp) came calling.

“I thought if I didn’t make the jump in careers then, I probably never would,” she recalls. “So, I went ahead and took a leap. I [left] my job and my house at the same time. I bought a travel trailer and went to work on movies, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

The Highs and the Lows

As a stunt horse trainer on the set of The Lone Ranger, Towslee worked with Bobby Lovgren, one of the most well-known movie horse trainers.

“There was a lot of liberty trick horse work,” says Towslee. “The movie had some complex stunt sequences that had to be worked out, and the director wanted as little computer-generated stuff as possible. The Lone Ranger’s horse, Silver, had to be on rooftops and jump from building to building. Silver [also] had to be in a tree over the Colorado river, so they built us one. Bobby had trained the horse to stand on a rail, so it looked like he was standing on a branch. Silver had to jump up into a train car and run through it while the Lone Ranger was shooting, so they built us a train car that was big enough.

“It was a process keeping things safe,” she adds. “You have to be pretty creative to figure out how you are going to get what they want to see on camera.”

The cast, crew, and of course the stunt horse trainers travelled to spectacular filming spots, including Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, and several locations in New Mexico.

But lest you think working as a movie stunt horse trainer is all teaching horses tricks in spectacular scenery, there are downsides to the work. Think white horses working in red sand.

“We had five white horses—I spent a lot of time washing [them],” Towslee laughs. “We were in Monument Valley in all that red sand, and there were windstorms. Our white horses turned pink, and when you’d wash them, they’d turn orange. And it was cold, so you couldn’t really give them good baths. It was just awful. I think they digitally fixed it; we couldn’t get them clean!

“We would be working all night and doing rain scenes, freezing our butts off,” she adds. “But you also get to do some really cool stuff as well and meet some really neat people.”

Horse wrangling work on A Million Ways to Die in the West and The Magnificent Seven, which included 140 cast horses, followed.

Stunt Horse Trainer Gangboss

Towslee’s first gig as wrangler gangboss came in the 2017 film, Hostiles. A gangboss runs the wrangler crew, trains the movie horses, gives the actors riding lessons, and handles the horses and actors on set.

“I would say the most important component to being a gangboss is communicating with the assistant director’s department, relaying that information to the wranglers, then getting them organized to achieve what the director wants to see,” says Towslee. “A lot of it is making sure everything’s safe for the horses around the cameras and making sure the actors are alright. Then we have other wranglers that are handling the background horses. Any time there’s a horse on set, we’re there.

“Quite often, we’re really close—if the camera sees half of the actor and half of the horse, we’re probably on our knees helping hold the horse still. It’s not always glamorous,” she adds with a laugh.

Towslee is one of just a handful of female stunt horse wrangler gangbosses in the industry.

“I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a disadvantage being female, but there is [also] no advantage to it,” Towslee says. “And it does have its challenges. I’ve been very lucky that my boss, Clay Lilley, has always had my back. Some of the cowboys have been in the business longer than me, although they have been very supportive of me. I very much respect their opinions.”

It’s easy to respect anyone who has the skills to work at this level—in other words, an accomplished horseman. Galloping scores of racehorses and breaking and training horses for decades goes a long way toward helping one speak horse.

“You do have to know horses: how they’re going to react to a situation and whether they’re going to be bothered by it, or whether you can use a situation to get the desired action,” explains Towslee. “You must know what drives a horse.

“Another thing is being a person that really pays attention to what’s going on around you all the time and can spot things that are going to cause a problem,” she continues. “Movie sets are incredibly busy, and there’s a lot of moving parts. We have actors on horses in very tight situations sometimes. You need to always have your head on a swivel.”

Favorite Co-Stars

If pressed, Towslee will name Sam Elliott as her favorite actor to work with.

“I worked briefly with him years ago, and now for the past five months on the series 1883 [a prequel to the hit show Yellowstone]. What a wonderful man. He possesses a certain humility and grace.”

But any conversation inevitably turns back to her horses.

“Pistol, a Quarter Horse, is fantastically talented as a movie horse,” she says of a horse she recently worked with while filming a series. “He’s like a Border Collie, he’s so darn smart.”

King, a Friesian cross, is another favorite who has been in half a dozen movies and doubled the main horse on News of the World.

Some of the horses know they’re performing.

“[Some can be] a bit of a ham,” says Towslee. “You have some stunt horses that you use for years and years. They’ve done umpteen Indian raids and bank and stagecoach robberies, and they just keep going. It never shakes them up. They’re in a whole league of their own.”

However, the work isn’t all fast-paced cowboy shootouts.

“Your background horses are basically walking from A to B all day long or standing tied to a hitching rail,” she explains. “A movie set has all these moving parts that are often very close to horses, so they have to be super tolerant of stuff.”

Temperament is the No. 1 trait Towslee and her boss look for in potential movie horses.
“Sometimes you’ll get a horse who you think is going to be perfect for the movies, and as soon as they set foot on a movie set, they’re like, ‘Nope! Can’t do it!’” she says.

“There’s a different energy to a movie set, with so many people and equipment and cameras. You try and introduce the horses to it slowly, but only your very best ones ever end up with actors [riding] them. They’re really special, the ones that make good cast horses.”

Variety is the Spice

No day as a Hollywood stunt horse trainer is the same.

“That’s probably one of the things I like most about it,” says Towslee. “I’m not good at things that are incredibly repetitive. Every day is different; it keeps your mind busy. I really enjoy that, plus the fact that I get to work with animals every day.

“The funny thing is, way back when, I always thought, ‘Wouldn’t that be cool to work with movie horses?’ And just out of the blue, I’m doing that.”

The post Hollywood Stunt Horse Trainer appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Not many people would consider climbing aboard a horse soon after breaking ribs. But not everybody is Suzanne Hayes, who won the Big Horn 100 endurance ride just six weeks after a fall that resulted in 10 broken ribs (some in multiple places), two fractured vertebrae, a punctured lung and a lacerated liver, and that led to her spending five days in the ICU and 10 more days in the hospital.

In fact, the 67-year-old Arlee, Mont., native was already discussing the possibility of riding the Big Horn—one of the toughest 100-mile endurance rides in the country—with her trauma doctors in the emergency room when they ticked off all the damage.

“I told them, ‘Well, I’ve got a really big 100-mile ride in six weeks,’” Hayes recalls. “‘I’m hoping that we can still plan on that.’ They looked at me like, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’”

Her accident happened while riding a young horse on a routine training ride. The horse stopped in a creek a quarter-mile from home to drink when he suddenly bolted, violently ejecting Hayes. (Hayes and her husband later determined he’d received an electric shock on his sensitive nose from a live fence wire that had fallen into the creek nearby.)

Compromised!

The Big Horn is one of the last old-fashioned 100-mile races.

“It’s a really difficult 100, and it takes a lot of perseverance to get through it,” says Hayes. “You have to pay attention because it’s so remote. I just really like tough rides.”

Riding the Big Horn 100 in such a compromised state didn’t seem like a far-fetched idea to this experienced high-mileage endurance rider. So many factors went into forging ahead with the plan that it appeared the obvious choice, the way Hayes explains it.

Early in 2020, Hayes had offered her horse, Greenbriar Al Jabal (“Atlas”), to fellow endurance rider Ann Hall to ride along with Hayes on Sanstormm.

“Atlas was three for three [in the top five] in the Big Horn [with a win in 2012], and Sans was zero for two,” says Hayes. “I thought this might be a really good opportunity for Ann to come up and ride Atlas with me on Sans. And that would be really good for Sans, because he would learn a lot from Atlas.”

Hall was excited to do it; she and her husband had planned a big two-week adventure. Hayes didn’t want to let her down. While her decision might seem irrational, she is anything but.

“I carefully weighed it out,” says Hayes. “I thought, how many times have I ridden a horse, how many times have I come off a horse, and what was the percentage. And I just felt like the percentage was low enough that I would do the ride.”

From 9 Miles to 100

Hayes didn’t get authorized by her doctors to ride until a week before the Big Horn, and technically didn’t get an OK at all.

“I got a CT scan the week before the ride,” she says. “I’d hoped they’d look at it and say, ‘You’ve healed up really well. We don’t have any problem at all if you ride at Big Horn.’ But they didn’t. They said that my injuries at six weeks were where they should be: my ribs were still separated, and they were worried about my liver, because it takes three months to heal. They said, ‘We can’t tell you that you should ride. We would recommend that you don’t. You really shouldn’t. There’s a risk involved. But it’s your choice.’”

Her final test was a training ride on Sans the week before the Big Horn, trotting and cantering for 9 miles.

“There was a fair amount of pain, but it was tolerable,” says Hayes. “Later on that night, it was a little worse. But I thought, well, I’ve got one more whole week to heal. Week five, I felt there was fairly significant improvement, so I thought that extra week six was going to be even better.”

The Big Horn would be “just” 91 more miles of riding; how hard could it be?

With Deference

Hayes loaded up and pointed her trailer south for Shell, Wyo., basecamp for the August 1st Big Horn.

She took extra precautions during the ride, wearing both a chest protector vest and an inflatable crash vest, should she unexpectedly part from her saddle. She also rode with a Garmin SPOT.

“I had my own SOS basically, because if I activated that SPOT, it automatically went to 911,” she says. “And Ann was riding with me, which was another reason I felt better.”

Hall opened all the gates (there are some 38 gates on the ride), since it was most difficult for Hayes to mount and dismount.

Compared to the prior weeks of drama, the Big Horn ride itself went smoothly. Exhibiting the smarts and patience befitting a rider who has already garnered an American Endurance Ride Conference Pard’ners Award with her previous endurance horse, Kootenai Zizzero, Hayes and Hall strategically stayed in the lead or within stalking distance throughout the ride.

Leaving the last vet check 16 miles from the finish, Hayes felt she had a solid chance to win, but was held back by her impaired condition.

“I had a ton of horse,” Hayes says. “But I couldn’t do anything about it, because I couldn’t ride by myself. When Gabriela Blakeley left our group [to go ahead], I couldn’t go with her, because I couldn’t say, ‘Gabriela, you have to wait and open these gates for me.’”

After the last gate 3 miles from the finish, Hayes turned Sans loose. Texas rider Cameron Holzer kept pace with her, and with extraordinary riding etiquette refused to pass, since Hayes had been ahead of her most of the ride. Those two crossed the finish line in second and third place, in a ride time of 15 hours and 15 minutes.

Tough as Nails

It wasn’t till morning that Hayes learned that Blakeley’s horse, first across the finish line, had not pulsed down in the requisite 30-minute window. That left Hayes the surprised winner of the 2020 Big Horn 100.

Anyone who knows Hayes well always incorporates the word “tough” when describing her.

She took nothing stronger than Tylenol and Aleve during the ride. Elatedly walking up to receive her award at the morning’s ceremony, she gave no indication she’d won one of the country’s hardest rides while mending multiple broken bones.

Hayes credits her friends Tara Rothwell and Lynn Lee for keeping her horses in shape while she was incapacitated. Lee also accompanied Hayes to the ride and crewed for her, as she often does.

While Suzanne Hayes raised the bar awfully high for the majority of endurance riders, Lee, who’s been friends with Hayes for 48 years, is not so surprised at the exploit in the Big Horn 100.

“You’ve got to know Suzie,” Lee says. “I’ve known her forever. And she comes from tough stock. Her dad and brothers were ultra-marathoners, and her mother started in endurance when she was a teenager in Vermont. So it’s in Suzie’s blood. And when she gets it in her head to do something, she does it.

“But she’s way tougher than I am!”

This article about Suzanne Hayes winning the Big Horn 100 appeared in the April 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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