Hour after hour, loop after grueling loop, racers began to drop out as others defied what they thought was possible when they began the ultra running challenge at 9 a.m. Saturday on the trails around Mount Van Hoevenberg. The race tests how much endurance athletes can muster as they log 4.167-mile laps on the hour, every hour, for as long as they are able and willing to make it to the next lap on time.

Ramon Dominguez, a world-renowned retired horse jockey, was the overall winner — lasting 27 laps, or 112.5 miles over 27 hours. He edged out Will Connolly, of Lake Placid, who finished in second overall after 26 laps, or 108.3 miles over 26 hours.

Connolly had a strong sense that it was going to be the two of them fighting to the end. At the start, another racer asked what their goals were. The simple, but profound, answer was indicative of how things would shake out, according to Connolly.

“I said, ‘I’m here to win,’ and he asked Ramon, and he said, ‘So am I,” Connolly said after the race. “I pretty much knew right then and there that it was probably going to be the two of us at the end.”

Ramon Dominguez crosses the finish line of Lap 27 at the Last Man Standing race Lake Placid held at Mount Van Hoevenberg Saturday and Sunday. Dominguez, a retired jockey, won the race. (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

The prediction came to fruition at 6 a.m. Sunday, to be exact. Lap 21, or 87.5 miles, was the first mano a mano lap after the third remaining runner dropped out during the 20th lap. Connolly said that’s when the mental dynamics were on full display.

“Each of us are probably looking for chinks in the other one’s armour,” he said. “Hoping for a little break here and a break there.”

They continued throughout most of the morning until Lap 27, when Connolly finally tapped out. Dominguez took that lap solo to cement his victory, a total of 112.5 miles.

“I’m on cloud nine,” Dominguez said.

He admitted that his goal of winning the race may have been a bit lofty. Though he has taken up running in retirement, most of that has focused on shorter-distance events, and he didn’t have much experience with ultra-distance running.

Will Connolly, left, smiles with his pit crew who kept him supplied at the Last Man Standing Lake Placid race held at Mount Van Hoevenberg Saturday and Sunday. Connolly ran 26 laps, or 108.33 miles over 26 hours, to place second overall. From Connolly are his wife, Montana Connolly, Vinny Grace and Oliver D’Orazio. (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

“I haven’t even run a marathon,” he said. “But I did have a good baseline and I poured my mind into it, and I was extremely excited to win it.”

Dominguez said the rain Sunday morning was actually a welcome refresher after a day of running — he just had to switch over to hiking boots after nearly falling on his back on the course due to the slippery conditions.

What Dominguez may have lacked in prior ultra-distance running experience, he made up for in mental fortitude, determination and grit — something his background speaks to.

He’s one of the most accomplished thoroughbred horse racing jockeys of all time. With just under 5,000 career wins — including $191 million in purse earnings and three consecutive Eclipse awards from 2010, 2011 and 2012 — he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2016.

His career came to an abrupt end in 2013 when he suffered a traumatic brain injury and multiple skull fractures from falling while riding at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. Through extensive therapy, Dominguez was able to regain normal mental capacity, though, on the advice of doctors, he retired from the sport that year.

Dominguez, who grew up in Venezuela before immigrating to the U.S. in 1996 and now lives in Saratoga Springs with his family, turned to running in his retirement to stay in shape and stoke his competitive spirit.

Gabi Kuenzli, a Latin American history professor at the University of South Carolina, came up to watch Dominguez race. She said Dominguez’s grit and determination is incomprehensible, even as compared to other professional athletes — something that she wasn’t surprised to see remain a part of his persona as he races in retirement.

“He’s one of the most respected jockeys in the profession,” she said. “So you’re dealing with a competitor the likes of which you can’t imagine.”

Though the competition was intense in the moment, it was nothing but respect at the end of the event. When Dominguez crossed the finish line for the final time, he and Connolly embraced, and Connolly placed the medal around Dominguez’s neck.

For Connolly, who lives adjacent to this race course where he and his wife, Montana, own and operate the Van Hoevenberg Lodge & Cabins, it was fun to share the course with Dominguez and other late-standing athletes with a similarly ultra-resilient mindset.

As the hours went on and Saturday turned into Sunday, the field got smaller and smaller. Fighting through the night, when runners relied on nothing but a headlamp through the woods, took extra grit. It was something Connolly drew on his experience as a Naval special warfare veteran to pull through.

“I know this from going through selection in the military that nighttime is the worst — most people quit at night,” he said. “You can’t see as much, so you’re other senses are heightened, so you feel all your aches and pains and it just lives in your head.”

He said that the first few nighttime laps had an air of excitement among the athletes, who all bestowed the honor at that point of having made it to the night. It didn’t take long for the vibes to head south.

“Three or four (night) laps in, nobody’s talking to each other,” he said. “It’s just suffering and the last couple nighttime laps … they’re rough.”

Fighting off sleep deprivation, physical deterioration and the mind’s rational scream to stop, Last Man Standing is a brutal test of endurance and willpower. It wasn’t the elements that decided when it was time to stop. It was the runners themselves.

They’ve grown in popularity across the country in recent years, said event organizer and owner of Beastmode Running Company, Anthony Samoraj. The races follow a similar format: 4.167 mile laps beginning every hour on the hour.

If athletes finish early, they had the chance to rest and recover for a bit — the only criterion to keep going was that the athletes be ready and start the next lap when the bell goes off on the next hour. There was careful planning and strategy amongst many of the athletes, such as calculating how much rest time they wanted between laps as the event went on, how they were refueling themselves and, as the event went on, how to make the competition think they were in OK shape to keep going, even as they felt on the verge of dropping out.

The precise lap distance is so that if athletes remain in the event for 6 laps, they will have run 25 miles in 6 hours, 12 laps is 50 miles in 12 hours and 24 laps is 100 miles in 24 hours. Come Sunday morning at Mount Van Hoevenberg, a full 24 hours after the race began, it was down to two racers who showed no signs of stopping, even as the region had been in the midst of a downpour.

While Sunday’s spotlight went to those who went the furthest distance, Samoraj said one of the things he was most proud of about the event was that over half of the field — which featured around 95 runners at the start — set a personal record for the longest distance they had ever run.

He said that while the numbers put up by the top finishers may seem daunting, the race format lends itself well to casual runners, and they just might be surprised with how deep they can dig as the race grinds on.