Obolbekov, 49, co-owns a horse-trekking company and hails from a family of shepherds. Then he watched as about a dozen horse-mounted teenage boys stormed his front yard and presented him with a headless goat. Obolbekov, who is six feet tall and cuts an urbane figure, walked outside and saw the snow-capped Ala-Too Mountains that tower above his village. Kok-boru is a popular horse game in Kyrgyzstan in which two teams of riders try to carry a goat or calf carcass into the opposing teams endzone.įive autumns ago, on a quiet Monday afternoon in Barskoon, a village on the shores of Issyk Kul Lake in eastern Kyrgyzstan, Ishen Obolbekov was lounging in his backyard yurt when he heard what sounded like the clackety clack of horse hooves smacking asphalt.