In Mongolian countryside, many nomads have spent all winter obsessing, plotting and strategizing about secret training methods for their horses to properly prepare them for the big Naadam festival. I remember asking Namjin, one of our dear friends and neighbors, what his horse training secrets for Naadam were. He looked at me and smiled. "We Mongols don't share our horse training secrets with our own brothers. But if you promise me you'll never race in this valley, I could perhaps share a thing or too." Trainers often lick and taste the sweat of the horses in training--the lack of salt on these lean racing horses, is a sign the horse is ready to race in the big Naadam. Many trainers place sheepskins on the horses while they train them to encourage greater sweating in the training. Many take their racing horses up to the top of their family ancestral and regional sacred mountains just before the Naadam festival--traditionally on the June summer equinox offering mare's milk and cheese to Ich Tenger, the sky god, believing that this pilgrimage of sacred time and place increases the hiimur, the wind horse of the horse and owner, increasing his luck, so the elements and ancestors will help him win. Old Mongolian folk belief says that Naadam was started to delight the gods of the mountains and rivers who love to see horses race. Little boys who fall off during naadam, are said to have displeased the mountain or river gods in some way. A riderless horse crossing the finish line, is still a winner, for truly Naadam is a celebration of horses. But horses is only one of the three manly arts of Mongolia--warrior arts for a warrior culture--training young boys in the fearlessness of galloping at full speed, to the strength of holding one's ground with wrestling, to the precision of the archer's bow and arrow to hit the mark with decisive accuracy. Fearlessness and courage, strength and protecting ground, precision and accuracy are all essential and vital skills of survival for nomads on the steppes where invasion was common occurrence.

~ V. Carroll Dunham