Hazard or heritage? Mongolia saddles up for fight over child jockeys

The child was so small he had to be hoisted onto the chestnut-coloured racing horse by a sturdy trainer, but he was soon cantering confidently across the frozen Mongolian steppe into the distance.

Nergui Ganbat, 40, smiled as he watched his son Oyunbold, 10, take charge of the powerful animal, steering it skillfully to and from the paddock.

The horse was headstrong and reluctant to return to its pen, but Oyunbold was unperturbed as he handled the reins, and his father appeared confident in his abilities.

It was not always so. The first time Mr Nergui saw his son take part in Mongolia’s most prestigious national horse race was a complete shock.

The boy was just five years old and Mr Nergui thought he had simply gone to observe the summer Naadam festival, a centuries-old celebration of nomad-style sports, with close relatives.

“I was watching it on television and heard my son’s name and that’s when I found out he was participating,” he told the Telegraph in his ger, or family tent, in the eastern Mongolian town of Baruun Urt.

The incident left him with conflicting emotions. He worried for his child’s safety, but was also brimming with pride that he did so well in the competition, finishing in 12th place.

His relatives, who work as horse trainers, made the excuse that they were short of jockeys on the day of the big race, and had asked Oyunbold, who started riding aged four, to stand in.

“It was hard to be angry with them when he achieved so much,” said the father of four.

Five years later, Oyunbold is a championship winner with a deep love for horse racing. Mr Nergui still frets about the risk of injury in the dangerous sport and the distraction from his education, but his son’s talent also draws admiration and provides a vital income.

Like many herders this winter, Mr Nergui has lost most of his animals to a severely cold winter known as the dzud, leaving the family dependent on Oyunbold’s £117 monthly training salary for basic needs.

The family’s dilemma is shared by many households in Mongolia, where horse riding and racing is deeply ingrained in the East Asian nation’s nomadic heritage, and the festival of Nadaam has been marked since the era of Genghis Khan.

“Horse racing is inseparable from our identity. Every Mongolian loves horse racing and our herders love it more than anybody. It’s the same as Americans’ love for basketball,” said Iderbat Manlaibaatar, the governor of eastern Sukhbaatar province, one of the main national centres for the sport.

But a requirement for riders to weigh no more than 35 kg – in contrast to the minimum weight requirement of 51.7kg for British Flat jockeys – means the competitors in national, provincial and local contests are always young children.

This has created a clash between Mongolian traditionalists and human rights groups who protest the exploitation of children in forced and underpaid labour and highlight their exposure to danger.

Uuganbayar Enebish, 42, who is one of an estimated 1,000 horse racing trainers in and around Baruun Urt, said international NGOs who criticise the risks do not understand rural Mongolian communities.

“They are based in cities. We are nomadic herders on the Steppe,” he said. “It is sad to see that international organisations try to make us conform to urban cultures.”

Mr Uuganbayar, who has been a trainer for 22 years, said he had 10 racing horses and two jockeys aged 12 and 13.

He introduced the Telegraph to Tamir Munkhbayar, six, a tiny boy in a bright green padded riding suit, who helps after school to take the horses for their daily 6-10km runs from the paddock to the windswept tundra on the outskirts of the town.

Still in training, Tamir said he had already competed in a local championship – a claim supported by his father, Munkhbayar Magsar, 36, who works as Mr Uuganbayar’s deputy.

“This is the most precious thing I ever did in my life,” said Mr Uuganbayar, who was a child jockey himself. “On horseback, you feel like you are the wind.”

He denied young jockeys were exploited and said they were financially rewarded. “As long as we follow standards, it’s going to be safe,” he added, stressing protective gear rules and age restrictions were adhered to.

Advocacy groups like Unicef, the International Labour Organisation and Mongolia’s National Human Rights Commission take a very different view of the national sport.

In 2016, they compiled a joint investigation on the rights of child jockeys in spring horse racing that concluded the conditions were so “hazardous” it could be “considered as one of the worst forms of child labour”.

The report warned that extreme weather and insufficient organisation of races was leading in many instances to accidents, injuries and even fatalities, and highlighted the lack of quality safety gear.

It said that children from poor families were being commercially exploited and their education hindered, reducing their potential as adults to have decent livelihoods. And it urged the government to comply with international law, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Amaraa Dorjsambuu, a Unicef child protection specialist, acknowledged the findings had prompted the authorities to tighten regulations to improve conditions for jockeys but said they had not gone far enough and required better enforcement.

In a statement to the Telegraph, Bulgantuya Khurelbaatar, the Labour and Welfare Minister, said a minimum age of eight had been introduced for Nadaam competitors, and since 2018, child jockeys had been required to register using biometric scanning to guarantee compliance and better monitoring of their rights.

Racers must now be covered by full accident insurance and national standards for safety equipment have been mandated.

Racing events and training between November and May 1 have been curbed, said the minister. In January this year, the law on child protection was updated to introduce medical check-ups, limit races to twice a day, and ensure the competitors’ access to education, she said, adding that regular inspections were carried out by the police and other experts.

But Ms Dorjsambuu said Unicef was still calling for an outright ban on children competing in cold-season events from September to at least the end of May and for the minimum age to be raised further for the Nadaam festival.

“We think when horse racing is commercial by its nature no child should participate,” she said, urging a stricter crackdown on illegal events.

“From the study we have done, it really shows that the children who are hired as jockeys are from poor families. We know how much they pay to the children is not enough and then it is really parents using their children and putting them at risk for a small amount of money.”

Save the Children “cautions that instances of injuries, disabilities, and fatalities among child jockeys persist due to races being organised in cold seasons in unsafe conditions,” said country manager Bayan-Altai Luvsandorj.

The group has recommended regulating race distances, educating trainers about child safety, prohibiting races during school terms or on non-standard tracks, and enforcing penalties for violations.

Official government figures show the number of child jockeys has swung between 10,453 and 13,519 between 2018 and 2023, but experts believe the figure is much higher. They say the sheer scale of racing events makes the sport hard to police.

The laws have been tightened since Oyunbold’s surprise debut at the Naadam festival.

Mr Nergui said he constantly badgered his son to wear protective head and body equipment during training but, like many children, he was sometimes lax with the rules.

“I do worry,” he said. “When he goes to the competition, I tell him ‘good luck, and you can do it!’. I tell the trainers to take care of my son in the same way that they take care of their horses.”

Official statistics on injuries and fatalities are hard to come by as official databases have only recently been created. However, between 1996 and 2016, the government cites “informal reports” of 30 deaths. (Over the same period, three jockeys died in the UK, reports suggest.)

Since 2021, there have been nine deaths and 466 injuries, according to Mongolia’s National Traumatology and Orthopaedics Research Centre.

Activists add that many incidents are likely unreported.

Oyunbold has fallen from his horse several times but never been seriously hurt.

However, two of his classmates, Saikhanbileg and Sumyadorj, said they had both suffered bad falls and concussions that landed them in hospital.

When he was six, Sumyadorj said his horse ran into a broken down car, causing him to fall off and be dragged along the ground while attached to a faulty stirrup.

Saikhanbileg said he had once been so stressed before a competition that he could not sleep. Instead, he nodded off on the horse while training, resulting in a head injury.

Both children shrugged off the accidents with the bravado of 10-year-old boys and said they would love to return to racing. Their parents have forced them to give up the sport for the sake of their education.

However, many other children were falling behind, too tired for homework, and taking too many days off because of training, said Shinebayar Jargalsaikan, a social worker at the boys’ school.

She added that it was common for young jockeys to experience stress under the heavy expectations of family and coaches.

“Trainers are spending big money on their horses. The children are aware of that and I am sure the trainers also put pressure on them,” said Ms Shinebayar.

She urged the government to do more to prevent illegal competitions.

“The situation will be much better if trainers value the future of the children more than the horses,” she added.

However, Mongolia’s tough environment has done little to discourage Oyunbold, who is so enthused by the sport he wants to make a career out of it.

Riding on his favourite, and fastest, horse Bunny was “amazing,” he said. “It gives me the feeling that I’ve made it.”

His father is less enthused. By his body language, he clearly adores his son and he praises his achievements and reputation.

But he said he did not want his younger two children, both in kindergarten, to be pulled into the gruelling world of horse racing despite the family’s money worries.

“A lot of trainers say they want to hire my children,” he said. “But I don’t want them to be jockeys.”

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