Riding for the Herders: Doniga Markegard’s Journey to Mongolia

I’ve been on horseback since I could walk. Riding was my passion as a kid: get home from school, jump on my horse, terrorize the neighborhood, run up into the logging country, make trails, just be gone until dark — sometimes riding back by moonlight.

I was really fortunate. I was raised by a single mom, and the horses were more like our babysitters. We were able to just be with them. I did compete in Pony Club and three-day eventing, so I have a bit of a background in dressage as well.

Then I didn’t ride much in my twenties. As I began ranching and having kids, I always had horses around — but it was all about the kids. Get the kids on horses, get them into competition. So it was: jump on a horse and go gather cattle, or ride with the kids, make sure they’re all having the experience I got to have. And this was in between working, running a ranch, writing books, and everything else adult life demands.

Exactly! It wasn’t until I made this commitment to the Derby that I began riding for myself and my own personal growth — really as a way to focus my energy and attention on things I had pushed to the side, whether that was physical, mental, or spiritual. And horses and extreme feats like this bring things to the surface. You really do need to be in incredible shape, incredibly aware of what’s going on, absolutely in the present moment. All of that brings things up that, if you’re just going about daily life in your comfort zone, don’t necessarily surface.

I’d heard about the Gaucho Derby, and then I read something about the Mongol Derby, and I just had it in my head like a dream — that I would be in Mongolia on horseback. The Gaucho Derby sounded interesting, but Mongolia really spoke to my heart. And so I had that sort of just in the back of my head: oh, that would be cool to do someday. I’ve always seen myself in Mongolia, in the vast steppe with gers around — just in a vision or a dream or something.

Then I started getting involved with the work of Warwick Schiller. He’d contacted me in 2022 to be on his podcast — for regenerative ranching and wilderness survival, my background. He does a summit every year where people who’ve been on his podcast come and do conference-style keynote presentations. I did that in October 2024, and that’s when I met Jesse Dowling, who I had actually known from twenty years previous. It was a pretty synchronistic meeting — I walked into Warwick’s barn and there she was. She said, “Hey, Doniga, do you remember me? You taught me permaculture in 2001.” She had just come back from the Mongol Derby, and I was fascinated.

Through Warwick’s podcast I also got in touch with Stevie Delahunt. She and I really connected. I signed up for her boot camp in spring of 2025. I was still in a big transition in my life, but after that boot camp I thought: all right, I’m going to apply. I went home and applied, had my interview in April, and signed up. So it’s been a little over a year since I made the commitment.

Stevie’s program set me on a good trajectory for my own training. I live in a really rural area on the coast of California. Going to a gym regularly isn’t really in the cards, but I actually do make it about once a week. There’s a gym and a barn at the local goat dairy down the road. I ride my bike there. They have a great trainer who’s helped me target certain areas: strength training, high-intensity short-duration workouts, hill sprints. And then just long days working on farms and ranches — that really helps.

I’m now about a month away from leaving, so I’m really trying to get in the saddle as much as I can. I just did 100 miles last weekend at the City of Rocks endurance ride. I also have a wonderful woman I’ve been going to ride with — helping exercise her horses. And I’ve been exercising the vaulting horses and training a young draft cross on the ranch who’s getting ready to find his new home. So it’s really: get as much time doing the actual activity as possible, and hone in on my gear — make sure nothing’s rattling or loose.

For the most part! I’m refining here and there, but I’m not really a gear person. I’m going the simple route: if I don’t have it, I’ll figure it out. I’m pretty used to being uncomfortable. With the Mongol Derby, you’re active and moving during the day on horseback, and then for the most part you’re going to have a shelter at night. I’m less concerned about gear than some people might be.

The stirrup leathers have been a bit tricky, though — figuring out exactly what’s most comfortable for me. The ones I’ve been using are fine for 20 miles but not comfortable for 100. I experimented a little at the endurance ride last weekend and I think I’m honing in on the right ones. The good news is I’m going out three weeks in advance of the Derby to be on Mongolian horses every day — probably 40 km a day. That’s when I think I’ll really make some tweaks and test my gear on those horses.

Yes — Julie Veloo, who started the Veloo Foundation, was kind enough to allow me to come on a segment of the charity ride. The Blue Wolf Totem is the longest charity ride in history: a 4,000-kilometer, 120-day ride to support the children of herders who have been displaced.

A big part of my journey to Mongolia is to bring back the stories of the herders and the devastation — the sort of biological collapse — due to factors like overgrazing, a changing climate, and economic pressures that are really outside the control of the people who care most about that land, know it best, and are its best stewards. It’s really devastating what’s happening with grasslands all over the world.

Mongolia is certainly one of the focal points because it’s so integrated with culture and history. That was where people first started riding horses, invented bits and saddles — the best horsemen in the world were on that steppe. And it’s not doing well. You can see it from afar: skinny animals, overgrazed grasslands, land that’s been turned to dust because so many animals are on it, pulling the plants out by their roots.

I don’t know — I haven’t quite gotten that far. I do have a love of writing and storytelling. Maybe there’ll be a book with many contributors. I think it would be fascinating to hear everybody’s stories — where they’re coming from and why they’re doing this. It’s mostly women doing this, which is pretty cool. I see these people wanting to go toward extreme athletic feats like ultra running, really testing ourselves — and I think adding the element of the horse really grounds that drive.

I think it’s more just that pre-travel nervousness. I feel really good about how far I’ve come in the last year of training — I look at myself a year ago, at my physical condition, and I feel really grounded. So I think it’s mostly the travel part, and leaving home, missing my loved ones. I’ve never been away from my kids that long. But I know that once I’m there and embraced by the community and the people I’m riding with, I’ll feel fine.

I think it’s a lot about mental and mindset work. Gear and physical fitness are important, but also just being able to take things as they are and not dwell on them. A lot of the work I did was around that. When I was doing my first endurance rides, if I messed up or something happened, I’d get really down on myself, and then your brain just loops on that. We are the most judgmental of ourselves; we are the hardest on ourselves.

So I think saying, “Hey, this is pretty amazing — I have the opportunity to train my body this way and be with horses this way,” and just having that grateful energy with everything we do.

It is pretty incredible that we get to travel to Mongolia and be on horseback and do something that so many of our ancestors lived as everyday life — survival, being with horses, being in relationship with the land. Those are things we need to bring back in an ever-changing, rapidly technologizing world.