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Title details for Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer - Available

Rough Magic

Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race

by Lara Prior-Palmer
Henrietta Meire
Audiobook
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At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior-Palmer discovered a website devoted to "the world's longest, toughest horse race"-an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of twenty-five wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. As she boarded a plane to East Asia, she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her. Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, a course that recreates the horse messenger system developed by Genghis Khan, and many fail to finish. Prior-Palmer had no formal training. She was driven by her own restlessness, stubbornness, and a lifelong love of horses. She raced for ten days through extreme heat and terrifying storms, catching a few hours of sleep where she could at the homes of nomadic families. Battling bouts of illness and dehydration, exhaustion and bruising falls, she decided she had nothing to lose. Each dawn she rode out again on a fresh horse, scrambling up mountains, swimming through rivers, crossing woodlands and wetlands, arid dunes and open steppe. Told with terrific suspense and style, Rough Magic captures the extraordinary story of one young woman who forged ahead, against all odds, to become the first female winner of this breathtaking race.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 7, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781684571550
      • File size: 219814 KB
      • Duration: 07:37:56

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 940
    • Text Difficulty: 4-6

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Lara Prior-Palmer jokes that her upper-class British accent is full of entitlement, and narrator Henrietta Meire certainly possesses that posh undertone in her accent. But Prior-Palmer is also authentic and self-deprecating, and Meire expresses that likability with energy and vulnerability in her voice. At 19 years old, on a whim and with no experience or preparation, Prior-Palmer enters the famous Mongol Derby, a 1,000-kilometer endurance horse race. She struggles with the GPS, gets soaked in the rain, falls off one of her ponies, and runs out of food. Meire brings the remoteness of the Mongolian steppe easily to mind and vividly portrays the author's gratitude and affection for the ponies (she gives them nicknames like Brolly and Seven) along with the kindness of the local people who feed and house her along the route. A.B. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:940
  • Text Difficulty:4-6

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