Every August 16th Siena goes from a quiet tourist town to an explosion of color, noise and excitement, this is all because of a age old tradition that the people of this small town hold very near and dear. The Pallio is a giant race that is held two times a year where the seventeen contradas (neighborhoods) of Siena come together in an intense horse race around the center square of the city. The contradas or districts each have a set of colors, a flag, a mascot and their own church sharing these helps to create a very strong sense of community and togetherness that is rarely seen in the United States. The contradas all band together to help one another and act as a very large family. This sense of community and family is something that is much more important in Italy than it is in most countries, when an Italian is born in a city or area, it is very uncommon for them to move very far from that area. They spend their whole lives being a part of this contrada and over time is becomes more and more important to them.
So with that being said, it helps you to understand how intense and competitive these neighborhoods could get if this is their only chance to prove that their contrada is the best. The Pallio allows them to band together and center all their time and energy on the preparation for this race. They spend most of the year picking and training a jockey, making strategies and planning parties for this one particular day. How the Pallio is set up, is each district picks one of their member to ride a horse in the race, and they are paired with a horse that is randomly chosen in a ceremony just days before the race itself. All of the horses are the most fit and wild horses in the surrounding area, but of course some of them are better than the others, so that means a lot of this race is left up chance and luck rather than skill of the jockey. Another thing that is left largely up to the luck of the draw is who is actually allowed to race, only ten of the seventeen contradas are able to race. They have a system of picking what seven contradas are left out each year, half of it is who was left out in the previous year, and the rest is up to a random drawing of names.
The day of the race all of the locals sport their flags and banners and scarves or headbands and dress in the colors of their contrada. They are all very excited and intensely competitive with the other contradas. By noon the center square is already filling up with people, they all line up along the edges in order to secure a good view of the race. Some people, namely the horrible German family in front of me, come at six in the morning and use that as an excuse to block everyone else’s view with their big hats and mean dumb heads. I will explain that further, later. The center square in the Campo is a free area to watch the race, there are many nice shady seats around the edge that run about three hundred euro each. So those of us who would not like to spend that much money for a horse race all go to the center. The one catch to this is, at four the contradas parade around the track until the race at about seven, so in order to do that they close up all the gates to the square and everyone is trapped. That means literally thousands of people packed into one area at the hottest time of the day, with very little shade, space and most importantly, access to a bathroom. So by the race you are a sweaty, smelly mess but I believe it was worth it.
The race itself lasts one minute and about thirty seconds. The ten horses and their jockeys race around the track a total of three times and the horse that crosses the finish line first (with or without a jockey on it) is the winner. It is a huge dusty blur from the sidelines as they race by. The track has two very sharp turns that cause pileups and crashes, it is usually at that point that a jockey would fall off, or a horse may collide with another. They had an enormous staff of both paramedics and veterinarians waiting at every corner to take care of the very probable accidents. I was lucky enough to not have to witness any of these accidents, initially coming to the race I was very conflicted and troubled with the thought of how these horses are treated and pushed entirely too hard. It helped to see the veterinarians ready to race to their aid, and it was apparent in the parades before the race how much they had pampered and taken care of their horse.
The Unicorn contrada won the race, so from that point on all the other neighborhoods had to take down their flags and white and orange would be the only colors seen on flags. They also receive a very large banner painted by one of the most famous artists in Siena; this banner was paraded around the streets until the early morning the next day. After that it will be taken to the Unicorn’s museum in their district and it will be displayed along with their other banners they have won in the past few years.
Looking back, I cannot believe I almost didn’t go to the race; this was an experience I will never forget! The intensity and passion that I saw in the faces of these jockeys and members of the contradas was something I have never seen before. This was like the super bowl, but bigger and cooler!
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