What was the first? If you don’t remember joster (aka boat jousting) you can catch up here.
This one was seemingly tame. How crazy is a horse race? Well when said horse race is Palio di Siena, pretty crazy.
I had heard of Siena before- I can’t tell you why or where I’d heard of it, but I knew I had. Always being up for adventure, I readily agreed when I was asked by a friend if I wanted to rent a car with him and his girlfriend and make the two hour trip from our port of Livorno to Siena. I’m used to being the adventure planner so it was nice to just show up and see what the day brought.
On the way to Siena I read several articles that my friend had printed out about Siena and Il Palio. A few weeks earlier he had described this crazy horse race to me- I listened to the story, but it didn’t make much sense…reading these articles helped a little, but it was still quite confusing to this American.
We were in Siena on a Tuesday and the race was being held on Thursday- in other words, Siena was in full Palio mode. Let me see if I can try to explain this to you (some of this I’m taking from wikipedia (although I despise it), but mostly from my experience in Siena, and from watching the race on Italian television):
Siena has this race twice a year- once in July and once in August. The race is run in Piazza del Campo, but there is no race track in Piazza del Campo. It is just your standard everyday Piazza (town square for my English-only friends) covered in bricks and surrounded by shops and street cafes. When it’s time for the race they create a race track by bringing in several loads of dirt and constructing bleachers all around the outer edge and leaving the bricks exposed in the middle.
As I was in town a couple days ahead of the race, the track was in place as were some of the bleachers. The entire piazza was full of people. In fact we had to fight our way through the crowd to even get into the piazza. There was a walkway that ran under the bleachers to allow access to the many shops and restaurants, but it was so narrow it was difficult to pass anyone. There was a blockade set up at the front of the bleachers and access to the track was restricted to a narrow path where we crossed into the center of the piazza. Once in the center there were people lounging on the bricks and a large crowd was beginning to gather near the town hall.
Siena is composed of seventeen contrades or city wards- think of these like the five boroughs of New York. Each contrade is represented by colors in a particular design (blue and white checks or yellow and blue stripes, for example) and a mascot of sorts. The mascots are mainly animals (panther, she-wolf, goose) but not exclusively so. They are also represented by unicorns, forests, and sea shells among other things.
The contrades are not very large and I walked through several of them that day. I saw their “mascot” and name of their contrade on nearly every building. Most people walking through Siena were wearing the standard of their contrade as a bandana tied around their necks or were dressed in the appropriate colors.
In the afternoon the crowd in Piazza del Campo had grown larger and something was clearly going on, but my lack of Italian prevented me from knowing what was happening. However, representatives of the contrades were leading their horses into the square and everyone was celebrating and singing. Throughout the day I saw groups of people draped in the colors and symbols of their neighborhoods leading their chosen horse through town.
And in this race, it is the horse that is most important. The horse wins the race- not the jockey. The first horse across the finish line is the winner- even if no one is riding it. The race is crazy enough and dangerous enough that riderless horses sometimes happen. In fact, the jockeys are allowed to use their whips to not only hit their horse, but to hit other horses…or other riders. Oh yeah, and the track is sloped. Did I not mention that?
But wait, the craziness is just beginning. A few days after the trip to Sienna I was at work and my friend that I took this trip with called me all excited and told me that the race was on television. Thankfully it’s my job to watch television, so I turned it on. Even though I knew what to expect, it was still hard to believe what I was seeing.
There are ten horses in the race and the race doesn’t begin until all ten horses are lined up in between two ropes. The order the horses enter the ropes is determined by drawing lots right before the race. The tenth and final horse/jockey will wait to enter the ropes until he feels the time is right. This usually has to do with the placement of the other horses. It’s important to note here that the loser of Il Palio is not the horse that finishes last, it’s the horse that finishes second. Also, a loss for a rival contrade is almost equally as exciting as your contrade winning. In other words, if your contrade’s horse was the last to cross the finish line, but your rival contrade’s horse crossed second, you would still be throwing a victory party.
The front rope immediately opens when the tenth and final horse decides to join the pack. The horses go around the square three times and the race is usually over in under two minutes. This year six horses were knocked down in the first lap of the race so only four made it to the finish line.
And I thought cricket was confusing….
Siena is a beautiful city, with an amazing cathedral and unquenchable local pride. If you are ever in Tuscany, don’t just hit the highlights of Florence and Pisa, go give Siena a look as well. Also, make sure you visit Cinque Terre. I’ll write about it later- it’s the most impressive place I visited all contract!
More to come…
