All The Wild Horses review: Conventional but rousing documentary

The documentary follows the riders in the so-called Mongol Derby, often billed as the toughest horse race in the world

Don’t expect the documentary to tell you much about Mongolian culture... (Ivo Marloh)

Dir, Ivo Marloh, 93 mins, featuring: George Azarias, Andrew Challen, Erik Cooper, Campbell Costello, Ben de Rivaz, Paul de Rivaz

All The Wild Horses is a conventional but rousing and well-made documentary following riders in the so-called Mongol Derby, often billed as the toughest horse race in the world. This is a 1000km race across Mongolia. Competitors switch horses at every horse station. They never know what mount they are going to get.

Don’t expect the documentary to tell you much about Mongolian culture. The protagonists here are Westerners who’ve come for an adventure holiday. They have GPS tracking systems and an extensive support system of doctors, vets and administrators. Even so, the race is gruelling and dangerous. One competitor breaks his collar bone on the very first day while another punctures her lung.

Producer-director Ivo Marloh has the knack of always being there with his cameras at the most hair-raising moments, when the horses are bucking or the riders have to cross torrential rivers. It helps that his protagonists are so colourful and so different from one another.

The madly competitive young Texan, Devan Horn, who came second in the race once before is determined to win at all costs. She quickly builds up a lead but then falls prey to sickness and disorientation.

Altogether more laid-back is Monde Kanyana, a horse whisperer from South Africa whose ability to calm even the most aggressive and skittish of the wild horses deeply impresses the locals.

Much of the film is devoted to the genial, easygoing Irish jump jockeys, Donie Fahy (competing after recovering from a serious back injury) and his best friend, Richard Killoran. They ride alongside two women they befriend, American firefighter Julie Youngblood and reckless young Brit, Charlotte Treleaven.

This may be a race but whenever one has a misfortune, the others always stick by him or her. Youngblood and Treleaven have only just met but after a few legs of the epic race, they are already best friends. Youngblood says that if she ever gets married, Treleaven will be top of the list to be her bridesmaid.

The filmmakers throw in lots of high-angle shots of the rolling steppes and daunting mountain ranges. They don’t go into any detail about the cost of competing or of what the local people make of this travelling circus in their midst.

The horses themselves are just as camera friendly as you might expect (although it’s a moot point whether they needed to be filmed galloping in poetic slow motion quite so often). The film is closer to a mountaineering documentary than to a conventional sports film. You can’t help but warm to the competitors’ gumption, ambition and a bravery that often comes close to foolhardiness.

‘All The Wild Horses’ hits UK cinemas on 8 June