Photos show an epic endurance race celebrating the bond between people and horses in Kyrgyzstan
First hosted in India in 2019, the event challenges teams of international riders to a five-day trek spanning more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) as part of a race inspired by the famous Paris-Dakar rally.
The Gallops' 2025 edition is taking place in Kyrgyzstan — a Central Asian country with a deep-rooted traditional nomadic culture.
The race begins in the village of Kyzart, around 3,000 meters (nearly 10,000 feet) above sea level, before taking competitors hailing from 12 countries on a journey close to Song-Köl Lake.
As well as camping in traditional Kyrgyz yurts, riders are able to experience some of Kyrgyzstan's other equestrian sports including horseback archery and Kok Boru. The latter is a game that sees two teams compete to place a goat's carcass — or, in modern matches, often a model of one — in their opponents' goal.
This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Travelling abroad this summer? Here's how to avoid roaming charges and save BIG on mobile data
Daily Mail journalists select and curate the products that feature on our site. If you make a purchase via links on this page we will earn commission - learn more Jet setters looking to stay online whilst travelling abroad this summer can do so with unlimited data from just £6 a day thanks to one clever e-SIM provider. Holafly is the eSIM that gives you unlimited data plans at over 200 destinations so you can stream, browse the web, upload content and stay in touch abroad with no roaming charges. And with seriously enticing prices, you won't be scared to open your bill at the end of your trip. Holafly Holafly helps get you unlimited data plans at over 200 destinations, giving you peace of mind whilst out and about abroad this summer. And from just £6 a day. If you love uploading to social media on holiday or are touring multiple countries, Holafly delivers fast, easy, and worry‑free internet access wherever you go. From £6 per day Shop An eSIM is a super smart travel hack that will help you stay connected whilst holidaying abroad - with no scary bill at the end of it. Whether you rely on your phone to navigate around a new city, upload to social media or stay connected to friends and family, Holafly can eliminate the frustration of roaming and data limits, and help you stay online from the moment you land. Helping you travel without the stress, the eSIM means no physical SIM cards and no hidden fees. In short, it's the travel hack that could save you time, stress and money this summer. Holafly is the travel eSim that could save you from sky-high mobile phone bills abroad. And while an eSIM can seem overly technical and a bit daunting, users of Holafly have raved how easy it is to use, commenting on how the 'connectivity is like being at home whilst you're on holiday.' 'The e-SIMs were easy to load' wrote one impressed user. 'We were able to download them in advance of reaching the country for which they were intended and simply activated them on arrival.' All you have to do is select the destination of the eSim for your trip and the amount of days. You don't need to insert a physical chip into your phone, you just install your eSIM automatically in the app or use the QR code or manual codes sent to your email. Then once you've landed at your destination, turn on the eSIM and enjoy the unlimited data of your plan. You can then use your internet, apps, access emails and use Whatsapp as normal, with reliable connectivity with high speed 4G and 5G data. And with no top-ups needed or the worry of running out of data, Holafly has given holiday-goers serious peace of mind. 'My first time using an E-sim. And honestly, one of the best decisions for our trip. It made our planning so much better. Signal's very strong everywhere we go!' raved a Holafly user. Another agreed, sharing: 'Easy to set up and reliable! Arrived at our destination and with clear instructions my data was available within minutes.' A third penned: 'It was very cost effective especially for the service we had. We visited England, France and Italy and always had 5G and never once had issues getting service.' The prices vary for the destination and for the amount of time spent but with Holafly you can get unlimited data for five days in Spain and the USA for as little as £17 - that's just £3.40 a day.
The Independent
7 hours ago
- The Independent
Olympic champion returns to dressage after whipping ban
Olympic dressage champion Charlotte Dujardin has returned to competition at the Hunters Equestrian event in Gloucestershire. The weekend competition marked her first appearance since serving a one-year suspension imposed by the FEI. The ban stemmed from a horse whipping controversy that emerged last summer. After video emerged of her striking her horse repeatedly, Dujardin accepted she had made an "error of judgement". Dujardin, who was provisionally suspended from 23 July 2024, won two categories at the event on her new horse, Special Effect. She is now permitted to compete in domestic events without seeking permission from the British Equestrian Federation, but would require it for international competitions.
Times
a day ago
- Times
Disabled holidaymakers ‘stay in UK to avoid hotels and airports'
Almost two thirds of families with a disabled member are not travelling abroad this summer over fears that hotels, airlines and airports will fail to cater to their needs, new research has found. A survey of more than 1,000 people who were either disabled themselves or had someone with a disability in their family, found that 64 per cent said they may not travel abroad this summer. The survey was carried out earlier this month by the polling company Savanta. • 'Rights for disabled travellers don't exist in the air' One of the major issues that emerged from the research was the struggle disabled people face when attempting to book hotels. Of those surveyed, 58 per cent said the main reason for not going on a foreign holiday was because rooms with accessible facilities were too expensive. More than half of respondents — 52 per cent — said that even finding a hotel with adequate accessibility provisions in the first place was a challenge. A further 54 per cent said they did not believe that hotels were properly equipped for disabled people. Furthermore, 47 per cent said they had avoided staying in a hotel over the past 12 months because of accessibility concerns. Booking flights was another issue, with 40 per cent of those surveyed saying that they had avoided flying over the past year because of accessibility worries and 56 per cent reporting that airlines were not well equipped to support disabled passengers. A further 58 per cent agreed that international airports were not equipped to meet disabled travellers' needs. Another problem that emerged from the data was the long delays which families with disabled members faced at airports. Some 51 per cent of the respondents cited this as their main concern when travelling abroad. Transreport, a technology company focused on improving access for disabled people within the travel and hospitality industries, commissioned the survey. A white paper on aviation published by the company in April found that 48 per cent of disabled passengers had to wait for over 30 minutes when disembarking from an aircraft, and 17 per cent said they waited for over an hour. In December, a Scottish family from Edinburgh said they had been told how they were left stranded in the Austrian capital Vienna, when a Ryanair flight left without them. Katie Brown, 25, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, told the BBC that she and her family were escorted by the airport's assistance staff to the boarding gate. But she said that the airline staff failed to show up and they were told that their flight had been cancelled. They later learned the flight had taken off without them. Ryanair said that airport staff were responsible for special assistance and that Brown and her family had been brought to the gate too late. Jay Shen, the chief executive of Transreport, said the survey results underlined the 'real-world challenges' disabled people face when they travel. He said: 'Action across the board is needed to drive lasting, meaningful change and ensure that everyone is able to travel safely and confidently no matter their destination.' Fazilet Hadi, the head of policy at Disability Rights UK, commented: 'Unfortunately, it's therefore not surprising that for the majority of disabled people, going on holiday poses a wide range of accessibility challenges. 'UK travel companies need to increase options for accessible holiday accommodation. Airlines operating from the UK need to improve their own passenger assistance services and influence better practice in the airports they fly to.' Emma Vogelmann, from the charity Transport for All, said: 'Most of us look forward to the fun of summer holidays, but as disabled people we find they're blighted by inaccessibility. 'We face booking systems we can't use, missing information about whether we can access things, and the risk of airlines breaking or losing vital equipment or leaving us stranded. The weight of extra cost, barriers, and worries can ruin our enjoyment or stop us travelling at all. 'Thirty years on from the original Equality Act, it's time that the travel industry stepped up to their accessibility responsibilities, so that all of us can enjoy a holiday this year.'
