Palio!

Today the Palio’s festivities officially began. First, let me give you some background information.

1. 1. The Palio is a horse race.

2. 2. The Palio is the name for a horse race specifically in Siena. The two most important Palio’s happen on July 2^nd and August 16^th.

3. 3. The city is divided (by neighborhoods) into 17 different contradas.

4. 4. 10 are only allowed to run in the Palio.

5. 5. The seven who do not run in July are guaranteed a spot the next year and the left over three spots are chosen by lottery.

6. 6. The race has been ran the same way since 1500, but has been a Senese tradition since about 1100.

7. 7. These people live and breathe this sacred Palio.

8. 8. It is like an Ohio State - Michigan game but with out NCAA regulation (much bribing takes place), has to be at least 450 years longer of a rivalry, and everyone who goes to Michigan knows everyone at OSU and vs. versa. All of your family has attended the same school between these and your grandpa may have been stabbed by your rival contrada when they used swords to fight. Dear Dio.

9. ...and welcome to the most famous horse race in the world :)

Wednesday –

9:00 a.m.

We reached the Piazza del Campo bright and early to watch the 40 horses try their chances at representing one of the contradas. A group of noble men from various contradas pick the ten best horses for the lottery.

12:30 p.m.

The ten best horses are randomly chosen by lottery and matched with each contrada. It was very entertaining to watch the reaction of the contradas when they were matched with a good or bad horse, haha. Italians can be very blunt about their feelings. Even in everyday life thy do not hold grudges but tell you like it should be the first time. They stare when they so choose to and are not afraid to show when they are happy or angry about something. Even if they do have an initial angry reaction about the horse assigned to them, they always parade away chanting their condrada’s song. These songs are towards rivals or just boosting themselves. Today the contrada Drago or Oca (have not figured out which one specifically) and their rival….. started fighting while parading the horse out of the stadium. Whole lines of fists were thrown. It actually looked like monkeys fighting because they were throwing their arms high, as if they were punching the top of someone’s head. This happened in two periods before the polizia decided to step in. We were far away and I guess this rarely happens during the day. I guess their rival contrada is not even running this time but were made because the Oca was chanting arrogantly. Who knows…. Mama mia.

6:30 p.m.

Did I mention time is a relative thing here in Italia? O yes, as is air conditioning? The first trial race was suppose to began at about 7:30 p.m. but started at about 7:50 p.m. This was cool because this is the first time the jockey’s are fully dressed, settled up and altogether in the Piazza del Campo. There was at least 1000 people there… keep in mind this is just the trial race. Pazza. Go Istrice! (the porcupine, the condrada of my host mom, Maura) Take care and talk to you soon J

Thursday

Two more trial races took place. One was rained out and one horse is officially out of the race because of an injury.