Shine Awards 2022: Mongol Derby’s Sarah Beck on her journey

Shine Awards 2022 nominee Sarah Beck was in the middle of Mongolia riding semi-wild horses, having beaten breast cancer, when she stopped to help a friend.

Sarah Beck was in the world’s longest equestrian endurance race, riding semi-wild horses in the middle of Mongolia, sleeping rough in yurts, occasionally taking a tumble.

And, says Sarah, who grew up in remote Queensland, she never felt more at home. At peace. Her spiritual centre.

“I’d never been to Mongolia before, but it was like going home,” she says, of the 1000km race in July.

“Mongolians are very kind and generous … If you’re down and out you’ll never go without a feed. And the horses were like those I worked with as a kid, not pampered and hardly handled.

“It was very emotional for me, because it was a combination of having beaten breast cancer to get there, but also my upbringing, working remotely with old bushmen and learning from the elders, an ancient culture. It was magic.”

Sarah, in fact, didn’t even finish the 10-day race, despite the fact she’d saved all her money and worked for two years to get there.

When a fellow Australian competitor and new friend had a serious injury after a fall on day eight, Sarah pulled out to support her.

“Being bought up in the bush, we’re very serious about mateship and loyalty and so I felt I had to be with her.”

Sarah may just be 56 years of age, but hear her story and it’s like winding back the clock to early pioneers.

She grew up on a remote cattle farm in the Gulf of Carpentaria, leaving school at 13 to ride from stock camp to stock camp, moving cattle and working alongside Aboriginal musterers.

They’d only turn the generator on at night for power, there was no phone and no doctor.

“It was a hard life, very simple but a wonderful childhood.”

Sarah met her husband, Ian, more than 30 years ago and together they ran a section of her family’s property, before farming in Longreach.

They moved to their current 130-hectare cattle farm in the Atherton Tablelands 17 years ago, lush country for their 200 Angus breeders and 11 horses (of all breeds).

In 2019, after caring for her mother with dementia for years, Ian told Sarah to go on a holiday “as we’d never had one before”.

Picture: Supplied

That’s when she applied for the Mongol Derby, successfully chosen to race in 2020 with 50 riders from across the world.

But then Sarah was diagnosed with cancer, a routine screening that found it had spread to her lymph nodes, even though no lump could be felt.

In 2020 she had a lumpectomy and radiation and told her doctors to be quick with the treatment so she could get back to training for the derby.

“In the darkest days I relied on my mental resilience. I just knew I wanted to get to the derby, it was the light at the end of a tunnel,” says Sarah, who takes a daily tablet to keep the cancer at bay.

“Remote bush teaches you resilience. You’ve got to keep going.”

Then, of course, Covid closed international borders and her derby plans were put on hold for two years.

The delay gave Sarah a chance to train on a rescue mule and mare, similar to the semiwild horses in Mongolia, riding four 50km rides a week and also studying aspects of vet health, with the derby requiring high animal welfare standards.

“The only thing I failed to train for was GPS skills because in the bush we ride as the crow flies.”

Having fundraised more than $1000 for Dementia Australia and $2500 for a Mongolian vet and medical charity, Sarah flew out in early July.

With the exception of hiking Kokoda, Mongolia was her first big “mind-boggling” international trip.

“For some people it was about competing and winning, but for me it was about the culture and learning the land.

“Flying in the wind on a wild little horse among the rolling plains. It was dangerous but if something had happened to me I told Ian I was at home. It was my spirit country.”

Sarah is a nominee in The Weekly Times Shine Awards, supported by Harvey Norman. If you know a rural woman with passion, dedication, belief, spirit or courage whose story deserves to be told, nominate her now.