South Bend horse rider took on world's longest race, in Mongolia

SouthBendTribune.com - Full Story

Joseph Dits - South Bend Tribune
September 7 2022

Heidi Falzon learned to ride horses when she was 4, and, she recalls, “It was the only thing I wanted to do.”

By the time she was 7 or 8, she says of her time at boarding stables near South Bend, “I’d be riding by myself, and I’d pretend I was on a semi-wild horse that only I got to ride.”

The now 29-year-old equestrian’s fantasy turned into reality, to a degree, in July.

Falzon rode 620 miles across vast stretches of grassland in Mongolia, wedged between China and Russia, in a nine-day race known as the Mongol Derby. Started in 2009, it calls itself the world’s longest horse race as it recreates a horse messenger system once developed by Genghis Khan...

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https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/2022/09/07/equestrian-south-bend-indiana-woman-horse-back-riding-in-mongolia/65468209007/