A Beginner at the World’s Toughest Horse Race – 400 Kilometres Through the Patagonian Wilderness

For some things in life, you simply can’t be ready. I had 7 months to prepare myself, going from a complete beginner to taking on the toughest horse race in the world: Learning how to ride. Learning how to navigate. Learning how to survive in the wilderness. In the Pass of Tears, everything was against me. Still I knew, I couldn’t lose.

The horses are pawing at the ground. Tension hangs in the air. I only just saddled my horse, Gitana, and I’m already standing on the start line. I ask myself: What will happen to all of us over the next few days? Who will fall? Who will make it through – and who will fail?

The thoughts drift past in slow motion. I’m so excited it feels as if none of this is actually real. Ten days lie ahead of us, and yet everything has condensed into this one moment. And it stretches. Organiser Jako raises the rifle into the air. And aims. And aims. And aims.

An eternity passes. The spectators are getting nervous. The riders too. When is this thing finally going to start? Bang. The shot catches almost everyone by surprise. A second later, 32 riders from all over the world gallop away. And I’m the first one to fail.

From Learner Driver to Dakar

It all started on Instagram. Originally, our Art Director Julian and I wanted to do a bikepacking trip across Portugal. Then this thought popped into my head: It would be cool to do the whole thing on horses instead of carbon bikes. Marlboro cowboy vibes, campfires and trail riding along Europe’s west coast.

I started researching horseback riding, and before long the algorithm served me @Jakotango. Not long after, Pass of Tears appeared in my feed. A race organised by two Argentinians, Rama and Negro, together with an Austrian called Jako. The tagline: “Insane Patagonian Horse Race.” Without thinking, I knew: That’s me. I have to do this. I didn’t know how yet, but…

Seven months later, I’m sitting in Patagonia. The race briefing has just finished. The riders are chatting and getting to know each other. Toby Coles, an extremely experienced rider from the UK, looks at me and shakes his head. “You’re taking the piss, right? Your first riding lesson was seven months ago – and then you signed up for this?” The South African crew had already written me off anyway. “The German Cowboy? No chance.”

Admittedly, for many people it sounds completely insane, rather like signing up for the Dakar Rally right after getting your driver’s licence. Still, I had a few aces up my sleeve. And a few smart training tricks.

The Insane Patagonian Horse Race – Pass of Tears

Ten days on two horses. Four hundred kilometres through the most remote corners of Patagonia; self-supported, carrying your own food and tent, with no phone reception. Ten hours a day in the saddle, followed by long nights in sub-zero temperatures. Routes that don’t exist – or that you have to invent for yourself. Along glaciers, cliffs and steep mountainsides. Through deep bogs, rivers, lakes, tangled forests and razor-sharp boulder fields.

No matter how well you can ride, Pass of Tears demands more. I knew this race wouldn’t be mastered through skills alone. It would take the right mindset, careful navigation and consistency. Horsemanship, outdoor skills, situational awareness – and the ability to deal with loneliness, doubt, despair and fear.

Honestly, I never could have believed just how insane this “Insane Patagonian Horse Race” would turn out to be. Plot twist: I wasn’t even a good rider. I couldn’t ride at all.

Training Like a Professional Vacationer

So: How do you prepare for the toughest horse race in the world, as a complete beginner? And why was it that after my final training session, I genuinely didn’t care whether I actually made it to the start line in Patagonia?

Learning is a matter of attitude, just like the things we perceive as hard or uncomfortable. Instead of simply looking for the most professional trainer (or the first one I could find) I started asking myself some fundamental questions: What might I encounter in Patagonia? How do I learn best? What can I control – and what can’t I? How do I deal with uncertainty and all the things beyond my control?

Instead of following strict training plans built on theory, I turned my preparation into a big adventure in itself. After all, Pass of Tears is an adventure race where so much can happen that you simply can’t predict. Dealing with uncertainty and making questionable decisions would be essential. That’s why I wanted as many “I-have-no-idea-how-I’m-going-to-pull-this-off” moments as possible.

Rather than simply training my body and my riding skills, I wanted to train my mind above all else. My strategy was pretty simple: put myself into as many different situations as possible, ride as many different horses and types of terrain as possible, and experience different stables with different philosophies, in different countries. To get the most out of it, I started doing short daily recaps that always ended with a flexible to-do list: What am I missing right now? What can I do tomorrow? And where can I learn it best?

I knew one thing: if I just stayed in Germany, I would be stuck in such rigid training structures and safety precautions that I would never learn what I needed to learn in seven months. It probably would have taken two years before I was even allowed to gallop. On a lead rope. Too much thinking. Far too much perfectionism. People stuff so much theory into their heads that they end up thinking more than feeling. But horses have to be felt.

Nobody knows that better than the Argentine gauchos. For them, feel and connection with the horse are what matter most. Technique comes second. And why choose one approach when you can simply try everything?

One month after my first riding lesson, I went on my first trip to the Dolomites. Steep, exposed terrain, so demanding that it would make some Mountain Bike World Cup downhill lines seem relaxed by comparison. Spending the night in a mountain hut, drinking deep red Italian Primitivo – self-supported could wait a little longer here – and taking a dip in an ice-cold mountain lake. Thankfully, I was riding Haflingers: horses so stubborn, yet so sure-footed, that you’re more passenger than cowboy. Perfect for the beginning. This is where I built the foundation for technical terrain and loose ground. And I knew: One month later, I’d be back.

Back in Germany, I worked on my technique with my demandingly thorough riding instructor Heike, analysed where and why I felt insecure, and asked question after question. Most riding mistakes get projected onto the horse at first: Why aren’t they responding to this, or to that? The answer is (ouch, ego) in 95% of cases yourself.

And then came our Moroccan fairytale. Together with my experienced riding friend Anastasia, I travelled to Marrakech. One Thousand and One Nights. Beautiful riads, multi-day treks, magical Bedouin tents – and focused training that seemed so simple yet so effective. My thinking was simple: Anyone who gallops down a beach in flip-flops with a huge grin across their face, and owns their own stable at nineteen years old, must know a thing or two. And yes. He did.

I learned an incredible amount from my young riding instructor and guide, Amine – while fooling around and laughing our heads off the entire time. Controlled crashes into the sand dunes of Essaouira. Bareback riding at sunrise. And full-on Yallah gallops along endless beaches towards the sunset, with fresh sea air in our hair. “Just do it”. Amine believed in me. And with his confidence behind me, I slowly started believing in myself too: Try. Fall. Laugh. Get back up. And go again.

Every now and then a horse kicked out. Not everything was technically clean. But it helped enormously to get rid of fear and hesitation. And sometimes the things we fear the most turn out to be surprisingly simple. A rearing horse is incredibly powerful and spectacular. And if you actually dare to do it, it’s almost disappointingly manageable. At the same time, it felt completely overwhelming that something like that was even possible after only four months of riding.

After that, I continued on to Agadir to visit Youssef, for a multi-day ride through the hinterland and along the coast – including a Tajine lunch stop, of course. Youssef had been one of Amine’s riding students. With Winghorses, he had opened his own stable, after starting riding himself only six months earlier. Time is what you make of it. Morocco was a real boost. Young people with big dreams, willing to get their hands dirty and simply get started.

I designed my preparation for Pass of Tears in a way that made failure almost impossible: exciting training trips, new places, new people, and always the right amount of fun and adventure. Nothing was supposed to feel like: “I have to do this”. Instead it had to feel like: “Fuck, I absolutely want to experience this”. It was a strong supporting programme in places I’d never been before – and places I never would have reached without setting myself the goal of Pass of Tears. And just like that, every single trip became so valuable that by the end, I almost didn’t care whether I was ready for Patagonia, or whether the race would even happen at all.

The grand finale came over the New Year in Egypt. Full-throttle gallops on purebred Arabian stallions with my habibis Omar and Mango from Tal3t Kheal. Riding between the Pyramids of Giza. Dusty, epic sunsets, and lots of Yallah through the desert. Between rides: visits to Tutankhamun’s treasures, 4×4 drifting, and camping beneath the stars. At some point, the training stopped feeling like preparation for a race, and started feeling exactly like the life I’d always been looking for.

Back home during the German winter, I was actually happy to see snow. I unpacked my new down sleeping bag and spent nights out in the white forest. My theory was simple: Better to sleep in harsh conditions now than face them for the first time in Patagonia. What I didn’t know at the time – fortunately – was that a snowstorm would hit us there, forcing the race to be suspended.

What Do You Do When Everything Goes Wrong?

My horse is fighting. It’s sinking into the Patagonian mud. I can see the shock in its eyes. It gives up. Panic shoots through my body. Fuck. What have I done?

My race diary couldn’t have started any worse. Day 1, and the first thing I write down is: Keep going. Don’t you dare quit now. Everything that could have gone wrong on the first day, did. I get lost. I follow the wrong tracks. The Patagonian wind almost blows me out of the saddle while passing through a natural stone gate. I get hungry. I fall off my horse. My horse freaks out, takes off, and is only just caught by another rider.

That night, Gitana suddenly rears up in front of me and strikes me twice with her front hooves. My shin is bleeding. I’m lying on the ground, shaking. Nour, another participant, hears me scream and runs over. She looks at me, and sees me laughing.

“Damn, couldn’t I have paid better attention?” The thought flashes through my mind for a second, then I burst out laughing despite the pain. The shock is there, but so what? Nothing’s broken. I’m still alive. And I know there will be many more things going wrong over the next few days, but only as long as I choose to see them as things going wrong. Mistakes will happen to all of us. They’re part of the adventure. It doesn’t matter what happens to us. What matters is how we deal with it.

With that realisation, I start Day 2. The night at the roofless hut was cold and the sky was full of stars. Several times we had to check on the horses. Branches cracked. The horses got tangled in their ropes. Later, I realised: There will never be a worry-free night with tied horses. I don’t hold any grudge against Gitana. She got scared. I simply didn’t know her well enough yet to understand what she was sensitive to.

We get up before sunrise and prepare a Mate tea, before packing everything up and preparing the horses. Slowly, the sun rises above the mountains. I’m riding in the back group, together with about nine other riders. Despite the pain, I feel better. And slowly, I feel like I’m starting to find my flow. It feels good being part of a group and enjoying its protection – at least for now. Together, we feel our way through unfamiliar terrain, crossing lakes and canyons. In the distance, we spot other riders on the opposite side, apparently trying their luck on a different route. We all have the same destination. Yet we’re all choosing completely different paths.

Find Your Own Way

I reach a point where I can’t take it anymore. “Should we go left?” “What do you think? There might be a route over there.” “Wait a second…” No question about it: This race is brutally hard. Navigation is based on scattered GPS waypoints, but the terrain is often so rough, so dangerous, that there simply is no way through. Even when I know where I need to go, one question remains: How the hell am I supposed to get through there?

This must be exactly how Frodo felt on his way to Mordor. Bogs. Glaciers. Stone deserts covered in endless boulder fields. Narrow footpaths running alongside cliffs that drop hundreds of metres into the void. And then there’s this dark forest, so dense you can barely see the horse beneath you, let alone a trail.

And once you’ve managed to fight your way out of the forest, it somehow gets even more dangerous: Green meadows. Sounds harmless. Often they’re bogs where your horse can get stuck. Finding the right route is a constant balancing act between calculated risk and hope.

Within a very short time, I learn to read plants, grass colours and different types of soil as indicators of whether terrain might be rideable – or not. Short green grass with patches of moss usually means swamp. Slightly reddish grass tends to be less risky. And where larger plants grow between the grass, the ground is often firmer. Transitions between different types of terrain, or slopes where water can’t collect, are usually the safest choice. Usually, anyway.

We’re playing around with his revolver when Gaucho Jesus gives me a piece of advice: “Where a sheep can walk, a horse can walk too”. This man should know. After all, he’s the kind of guy who’ll spend days hunting a puma with his revolver and dogs when it has killed too many of his sheep. The crazy thing is this: What feels like extreme conditions to us is simply normal life for the gauchos. Our reference points for what’s normal and what’s extreme begin to shift. We all know it, really.

Just like in real life, almost nobody actually knows the way. Finding your own path, taking genuinely new routes. It’s always hard. It’s always full of doubts and fears. The only question is how you deal with them.

For Pass of Tears, you could enter either as a solo rider or as a team of two. In reality, groups of solo riders started forming pretty quickly. That’s completely fine. But half way into Day 2, I made a decision. I didn’t want to get lost in endless discussions and compromises. I wanted to ride my own race, and I wanted to take responsibility for my own decisions. If I got lost or made a wrong turn, I didn’t want to be angry at someone else like I was on the first day. I didn’t want to think: “If only…”, or “I knew it”. No. I wanted all of that to be mine. I wanted to ride myself into the shit, and be the one to ride back out of it again.

Leaving the group turned out to be the best decision I could have made. The forest simply refused to let us through. Many riders spent four or five hours searching for a way through the dense undergrowth. Some even had to spend the night in the forest, where they were surprised by snow during the night.

Gitana and I managed to find a route where seemingly none existed. Riding solo, we gained hours. The result? We moved up more than fifteen positions. We climbed into the front half of the field. And we even got to spend the night at a checkpoint, complete with a campfire, roast lamb and a glass of Malbec. Salud.

I was convinced: This must be what paradise feels like. Nobody expected me to survive Day 2, and now I was standing there knowing: I’m back in the game. That feeling carried me for the next few days. I became more present. I started making decisions at my own pace and in my own way. Finally, it was just me and my horse, out there on our own. And when you’re alone, there’s no chatter from everyone else. You can hear your own voice. You can listen to your intuition. And that turned out to be the hardest part of all.

What Do You Choose?

An inner dialogue: everyone has one. In Patagonia, mine was pretty loud at first. My mind was spamming me with questions, doubts and fears, sometimes spiraling all the way into despair. Is this the right way? Fuck, the others are probably miles ahead by now. I’m definitely falling behind. Shouldn’t I have taken that other turn earlier? How the hell am I supposed to get through here?

The race turned out to be the best training I could have wished for. Every day brought new reasons to doubt myself, new reasons to let fear consume me and suffer because of it. But as the days passed, I got better and better at observing my inner dialogue and recognising its patterns. The funny thing was: The doubts weren’t new at all. They were pretty much the same, just triggered by slightly different situations.

And at some point, I remembered: Yesterday, I had thought exactly the same thing. I had doubted myself in exactly the same way. And I still found my way through. So I’ll find my way through today as well. Day 5 changed everything.

On Day 6, after crying once again – out of despair and out of joy – I scribbled something into my race diary: “I don’t know whether I’m breaking apart or growing.”

Probably both. Suddenly, I understood why this race is called Pass of Tears. Not because you suffer. But because joy and despair, problems and growth, victory and defeat are woven together so tightly that you can barely tell them apart. One needs the other.

Every critical situation, every moment of fear, every doubt, every flash of despair, is an opportunity to grow. Not by forcing yourself to ignore the doubts, but by accepting them – and choosing a direction anyway; choosing a good mood anyway.

$15,000 to Sleep with Mice

I was just about to go to sleep when two mice climbed across my sleeping bag and disappeared behind a piece of wood. A few days earlier, I had actually been hoping to sleep in the same room as a dead lamb hanging there to bleed out. It didn’t happen: the doorless hut had already been claimed by another racer.

It’s crazy how quickly you can end up living in a completely different reality, and suddenly accept it as normal. The same goes for the money. Fifteen thousand US dollars to suffer? To push yourself to your limits? To sleep on the ground? Freeze? And carry your own food?

Not included: Travel expenses, preparation, all the equipment. And still: until you’ve actually done something, you can’t even begin to understand its value. Now, after this adventure race, my conclusion is crystal clear: I would have paid even more. The value of Pass of Tears doesn’t lie in comfort. It lies in the exact opposite. The discomfort. The struggle. The challenge.

Once upon a time, luxury meant comfort. Today, it means feeling alive. Experiencing something. Growing beyond yourself. Investing in yourself instead of things.

Without the race, I probably wouldn’t have ended up on a couch eating chips, but the race still turned me into a different person – the preparation as much as the adventure itself. Everything that came with it: the people, the new skills, the new perspectives. And the best thing was that finishing the race wasn’t the end. It was the beginning. Because the friendships formed around the world will inevitably lead to new adventures and new experiences.

Within seven months, I had gone from outsider to insider. I was allowed to dive deep into gaucho culture. Not as a sunshine tourist, but experiencing it in all its harshness, and getting at least a glimpse of what it means to live and work in the vastness of Patagonia. Because what seems completely insane to us is simply everyday life for some local gauchos. And if you listen to the locals, it gets even crazier. Gaucho Jesus actually fell off Paso Malo once. With his horse. And slid hundreds of metres down the impossibly steep mountainside. He’s the one who lets us play with his revolver the night before crossing the Plateau of Death. And yes, secretly I’m hoping he’ll take me on a puma hunt one day. With a horse and a revolver, of course.

You don’t gain new perspectives sitting on a couch in front of the TV. And you don’t gain them from reading books or magazines either. You gain them by doing. People say they can imagine what something is like. But until you’ve experienced it in your own skin, it’s all just grey theory.

Out there in the wild, during Pass of Tears, even a dry place to sleep and a roof over my head suddenly had a completely different value – whether that was next to a pile of firewood, in a leaky mountain hut alongside mice, or beside a lamb hanging from the ceiling. An overly sweet instant cappuccino suddenly felt like the greatest luxury in the world.

I’m firmly convinced of one thing – and even more so after this race: We need more rawness and more wildness in our lives. Our comfort zones and our growing disconnect from nature are making us incapable. They’re catapulting us into a shrunken reality where we’ve forgotten what we’re actually capable of. Pass of Tears showed me how little it takes to feel alive. And thankfully, the organisers are radical enough that the race feels radically raw as well – without any padding.

At the Foot of the Glacier – Too Far to Turn Back

The message comes through on my Garmin inReach late in the afternoon: “A snowstorm is moving in. The race is suspended. Find safe shelter or return to one of the checkpoint camps.” Go back? No fucking way.

I’d only just changed horses, and had ridden through brutally demanding terrain with fresh energy. There was no chance I was going to ride three hours back, only to ride the exact same route again once the race resumed. I can see the snow clouds moving towards me. There’s still an entire mountain between me and the river below, where the recommended camp spot is located.

I hesitate. My legs and my mind feel reluctant to continue. But I know one thing: I’m not sleeping up here in this high-altitude swamp. Besides, there’s no decent water here. Not for Pulpito, and not for me. So I keep going. It will be at least another two hours, probably more. The climb is nasty. The wind keeps getting stronger and I have to lean forward just to make progress. My GPS isn’t working properly; my position keeps jumping around, making navigation even harder.

Ahead of me are two possible routes. Both are extremely exposed, and neither looks remotely promising. I’m standing at the upper option, and can already see my destination down in the valley. I decide to try the lower route. Then I have to turn around. Too narrow. Too close to the cliff edge. One wrong step and I’m falling fifty metres into the void, and no rescue helicopter is coming to save me. Not in these conditions. So back up again to try the other route. Every wrong decision burns energy my horse can’t afford to waste. From high above, I slowly zigzag my way down into the valley. I try to stay calm, but I can feel myself starting to swear.

Three more times I have to turn back because I’ve gone too far or taken the wrong turn. Then I let out a big whoop. Finally. Made it.

I spot Daisy and Liam down by the river, taking care of their horses. They’ve already arrived and set up camp. The funny thing is that I left the previous checkpoint about an hour ahead of them, and now I’m arriving an hour later. That’s how it goes. Navigation. Route choices. Obstacles. They can cost you hours, without even seeing anyone overtake you. The valleys are wide here.

I patch up the roof of a leaky hut and make myself comfortable beside a fire. The race is still suspended. Honestly, we’re all pretty happy about it. A little rest feels good. Both horses and humans get a chance to breathe. The next morning, however, the comfort is over. Because the thick cloud cover makes Garmin inReach reception terrible, we don’t receive the message that the race has resumed until it’s already underway again. Damn. Instead of being saddled up and ready to go, we’ve taken our time, enjoyed the rest a little too much. And of all days, today is the day things get serious.

We need to climb up to the glacier and pass a GPS checkpoint before 2 pm. Otherwise, we won’t make it through the unforgiving terrain in time. So there’s only one option: go!

We cover ground. We’re making good progress. At the checkpoint, we stop briefly. The horses graze. We eat. We drink. We keep moving. The terrain just keeps getting worse. It becomes increasingly unforgiving, until eventually we find ourselves standing at the foot of the glacier. Everything up to this point had already been brutal. But during the race briefing they told us: “From here on, it gets technical.”

They should have said next-level technical. So next-level that eventually there’s only one question left: How the hell are we supposed to get through this?

Ahead of us lies an ice-cold glacial lake. Massive boulder fields. Steep slopes. It feels exactly like the dense forest on Day 2, only this time, the forest is made of piles of stones. Together with the horses, we have to work our way along the steep shoreline of the glacial lake. Daisy sinks halfway into it – at least deep enough for her legs and boots to be completely soaked.

Then the route climbs steeply across huge rock slabs. The horses struggle for grip. They slip. It’s incredibly sketchy. Mistakes are not allowed up here. We move forward painfully slowly. And whenever it’s not rocky and impassable, it’s swampy. The time limit is breathing down our necks. But four hours later, one thing becomes clear: Fuck it. We’ll take the penalties. We’re definitely not pitching our tents up here in this high-altitude swamp. So we keep riding until dusk begins to fall. Past a huge waterfall, across steep mountainsides, through countless streams that repeatedly force us to turn back to find a place where the horses can cross safely.

The final challenge of the evening: The tree line. Because the forest we have to cross to reach the valley is, once again, everything at once: ridiculously dense, ridiculously steep, wet, slippery. We fight our way through the undergrowth and pitch camp at the bottom. We light a fire to dry our clothes. We are tired. My race diary can wait until tomorrow.

Exhausted, I sit by the fire. And then something beautiful happens. A strange sense of calm and presence starts flooding my body. The colours get richer. The sound of the river and the crackling fire suddenly feel louder, clearer, more alive. The feeling reminds me of my first mushroom trip in California a few weeks earlier – except this time I haven’t taken anything at all. Maybe that’s what happens when you spend enough time out here. Far away from notifications, screens and the constant chatter in your own head. For the rest of the evening, everything feels incredibly immediate. Then I crawl into my tent, pitched somewhere between – and probably on top of – a collection of cow pats. Sometimes all your options seem shit. And yet, somehow, everything feels just right.

Between Honour and Ego – the Race Behind the Race

While we’re constantly swinging back and forth between pure joy and complete despair, I find myself thinking: For everything that’s happening out here and everything being demanded of us, we’re actually getting through this surprisingly well. I wonder how the others are doing. How far behind me are they? Are they stuck somewhere? Making progress? Still fighting their way through?

I’m spooning porridge into my mouth while cantering, when my thoughts drift to the front-runners. Thirty thousand US dollars in prize money await the winners. It’s obvious that the pressure and tension at the front must be immense. I can hardly imagine they’re able to enjoy the race under these conditions. At the checkpoints, we can occasionally ask for positions, but out here in the wilderness, we really have no idea what’s going on. No phone reception. No internet. For us, the live tracking is just as far away as civilisation itself. And that’s how the wildest stories begin. And most of the gossip too. Who’s where. Who’s doing well. Who’s not.

It’s in the difficult moments that you get to see what people are really made of, and how they deal with hardship. One person stood out more than anyone else: Marcos. Not only did he have horses in the race and compete himself, but as a local he was simultaneously taking care of an entire group near the back of the field.

He helped wherever he could. Organised things, supported people, made sure that even the last riders somehow found their way through. It wasn’t his job, and honestly, he could easily have spared himself the extra burden – but he didn’t. Instead, he took on even more responsibility and helped others navigate this wilderness. Nobody would have expected that level of honour, helpfulness and consideration for fellow competitors. At the end, he received a special award for it. Completely deserved. An absolute legend, and someone who embodies values that have become rare these days.

How Can You Still Laugh?

I scream into the void. Nobody is there to hear me. Except maybe my horse, who’s either shaking its head internally, or celebrating with me. The fact is: We made it again. Found the route. Crossed the swamp, completely soaked, but still in one piece. And eventually we found a fire to warm ourselves after the bitter cold.

On the Pass of Tears, the moments balanced each other out. There were exactly as many moments filled with excitement, fear and despair as there were moments filled with joy, pride and achievement. Maybe even more of the first kind. But every challenge was followed by a moment where you overcame it. And that’s exactly what I had signed up for.

After Day 1, I tried to see something positive in everything. Every challenge. Every setback. And the crazy thing is: it works. If you want to see the beauty, you’ll find it. Like the wild chamomile I stole to make tea a few kilometres before the finish line, while completely exhausted.

You have to make time for the things that fulfil you. We’re at a race here, not running away from something. That became my key in Patagonia. Even in the most completely shitty moments, I always found something good. And somehow that energy spread. People cheered me on, helped me, laughed with me. They genuinely wanted to see me make it to the finish. Even some of the winners came up to me afterwards with a grin and said: “Robin… you’re completely crazy. You’re the real winner.”

The organisers felt the same way. So they invented a special award just for me: The happiest, craziest and loneliest racer, because I had spent the longest stretches riding completely alone.

The Plateau of Deaths

If anything ever lived up to its name, it was the Plateau of Death. Let’s rewind. Together with Liam from Bolivia and Daisy from England, I set out to cross the Plateau of Death. Imagine walking across rocks and suddenly sinking into the ground together with your horse. Until that day, I didn’t even know stone swamps could exist. Treacherous and unpredictable, the line between rideable and “fuck, we’re sinking” was incredibly thin.

On top of that: low clouds, snowflakes flying sideways, and a route that seems endless. Twenty-seven kilometres through terrible terrain, crossing countless rivers before reaching the next checkpoint.

The moisture creeps through my gloves. I keep tucking one hand under my leg while leading the horse with the other. The wind gets stronger. The rain now hits my waxed jacket horizontally.

Before the race, I’d bought four different pairs of gloves, and spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about which clothing would actually work out here. Because the weather in Patagonia changes like moods, hourly. Sun. Hail. Rain. Sometimes the wind is at your back. Most of the time you’re fighting against it. The wind is by far the worst part. It cuts through every layer, and drains every bit of energy from you.

With a one-hour penalty, we arrive at the checkpoint shortly before darkness falls. I’m freezing in a hut, wrapped inside my sleeping bag while temperatures drop below zero.

My horse has developed a sore spot beneath the saddle, so I spend the morning treating it, together with the veterinary team. Everyone else has already moved on, so I take things easy. The cold saps my remaining energy, and my horse is growing tired too. At the next checkpoint comes the final horse change. I have to switch back to my other horse while leading the exhausted Pulpito all the way to the finish on a rope.

The Real Heroes

With all the hardship and challenges, it’s easy to forget how much organisation stands behind Pass of Tears. Around forty men and women made this race possible: veterinarians, doctors, farriers, logistics crews and race organisers. What impressed me most was how seriously the wellbeing of the horses was taken. Daily vet checks monitored their health, pulse, signs of lameness, saddle sores and potential injuries. Anyone who pushed their horse too hard or ignored warning signs risked heavy penalties – or even disqualification. Several participants were removed from the race for exactly that reason.

The true heroes of this race are undoubtedly the horses. What these animals accomplished day after day was incredible. The local Criollos move through swamps, boulder fields, river crossings and steep mountain slopes with a natural confidence that never ceased to amaze me. Sure-footed like mountain goats, tough like working animals, and still fast enough to cover huge distances for hours on end. A race like Pass of Tears would probably be impossible on most other breeds.

Just like in enduro mountain bike racing, one thing was clear to me from the beginning: This wasn’t about getting the maximum performance out of my horses. It was about getting through this together. That’s why I often got off and walked beside Pulpito on long and steep climbs. The real art lies in managing energy correctly, both your own and your horse’s.

Nobody Said the Last Kilometres Would Be Easy

Rama, one of the race organisers, tries to motivate me. I should eat something quickly. At the same time, somebody else presses a fiery whisky into my hand. I should hurry up and keep moving. I could still reach the finish today.

At that moment, the optimism was a little too much for me. And why all the stress anyway? The next riders behind me are at least seven hours away. Almost an entire riding day. The leaders ahead of me are completely out of reach. So, change of strategy: Siesta. The sun is out.

Wup-wup-wup-wup: suddenly the air starts vibrating. The helicopter. And with it, my escort. The Kenyan-English polo player Natasha, and Nour, a model from New York, can no longer continue the race because their horses failed the second-to-last vet check. When they ask if they can accompany me to the finish on spare horses, I somehow hear myself not saying no. With great company, sunshine and relatively easy terrain ahead, this is supposed to become a relaxed final stage. Yeah, right.

Up until now, there had been water everywhere. Except on the final stage. At least, that’s what we were about to discover. The rivers marked on the map are dry. No drinking water. No water for the horses. No water for cooking.

But as luck would have it, while we have no water, we do have wine. At the last checkpoint, Nour somehow managed to acquire two bottles of rosé. Salmon risotto à la rosé? Bison chilli à la rosé? We’re surprisingly enthusiastic as we pour roughly 300 millilitres of wine into our dehydrated trekking meals. Maybe it will work. Maybe we’re about to invent a new gourmet trend? Reality has other plans. It’s awful. Bitter. Barely edible. Not even the extra sips of rosé help. Still, the campfire is burning beautifully.

Since my tent is still damp from the night before, and the cloudy sky suggests a relatively mild night, I decide to sleep beside the fire. Nour kindly offers to let me knock on her tent if I get cold. Of course I’m not cold. Until I decide that maybe I actually am. So at three o’clock in the morning, I knock. After days of loneliness in the wilderness, a hug feels unbelievably good.

“Robin, I don’t want to scare you, but your horse is gone.” At six in the morning, there’s another knock on the tent. This time it’s Natasha, with exactly that message. Shit. One day’s ride from the finish, and now this. It’s still dark outside. I crawl out of the tent and, instead of looking for my horse, I first look for a bush to take care of business. While emptying my body, I take the opportunity to clear my head and organise my thoughts. There’s no point running around like an idiot with a headlamp, wasting energy while searching for a horse in the dark.

So what now? The whole race has taught me to trust. So I do exactly what I’ve done every morning before starting. I pack my gear, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, prepare the saddle and bags. And sure enough: Shortly after sunrise, Gitana – my runaway mare – appears on a distant hillside and slowly starts making her way towards us.

Rainbows Need Rain

Time for the finale. The moment we’ve packed our things, the rain starts. The wind gets stronger and whistles around our ears. The terrain is actually easy. It just goes on forever.

Four times I try crossing a wide river with both horses. Four times I almost end up in the water because Pulpito refuses. He’s had enough. He responds to my commands with a weary delay. And continuing to lead him on a rope isn’t working anymore. So, I simply let the exhausted stallion roam free, and drive him ahead of me cowboy-style.

By now, patience has run out. It’s miserably cold. Everything is soaked. And then there’s this damned pasture gate that we simply can’t find while riding along a fence line. I don’t want to keep going anymore. Pulpito doesn’t want to keep going anymore. And the weather doesn’t want to keep going anymore either.

Everything becomes harder. Slower. Colder. We’re so close to the finish. At the same time, I know one thing: This can’t be how it ends. Despite all the hardships, this race has felt like a miracle from start to finish. So many things have somehow worked out. So many things have happened in absurd ways. Riding into the finish line in pouring rain simply wouldn’t do this adventure justice. And then, shortly before the finish, something completely surreal happens. Two rainbows. Makes sense, really. Rainbows need rain.

In the end, I finished the race in eight days instead of the planned ten. The winners took seven. The crowd cheers as I ride down the final hill with a mystical rainbow behind me. For the last few metres, I break into a gallop. After all, an ending deserves at least a little heroic drama. My fellow riders greet me with bourbon. Wet hugs. Cheers. And slowly it begins to sink in. I actually did it. I kept my promise.

Most dreams don’t fail because they’re impossible. They fail because we never start. Seven months before this race, I had my first riding lesson.

Conclusion

The first step is almost always ridiculously small. An email, a phone call, a decision. And suddenly you find yourself somewhere in Patagonia, sitting on a horse in a snowstorm, and the adventure takes on a life of its own.
Before you know it, it’s over. And that’s when you realise: You don’t become ready beforehand. You become ready along the way.

Words: Robin Schmitt Photos: Eliseo Miciu Nicolaevici, Robin Schmitt, Valentine Dreyfus, Moustapha Younis, Amine