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Sanitising insanity: what next for Siena’s palio?

by Andrew Whittaker
July 30th, 2009

It’s one of the iconic sights of Italian culture, the Sienese palio, the breakneck horse race that thunders around the Tuscan city’s medieval Piazza del Campo twice every summer. But the race could be under threat from new animal welfare legislation being considered by the Italian government, drawn up amid concern over the number of horses injured or killed during the event

The palio in its present form dates back to 1656, when riders switched donkeys for horses (they originally started out riding buffalo). It’s an expression of Italian campanilismo, of civic pride (literally, of loyalty to your ‘bell tower’). Today, ten horses run, each one representing a contrada (borough). The ‘palio’ originally referred to the piece of silk cloth given as a prize to the race winner.

Ministers have yet to disclose just what the new laws will include, but some think they might prohibit the use of bits and whips on unofficial racecourses; something the palio’s organisers say will make the race impossible. Incidentally, the traditional palio whip, the nerbo, is made from a stretched ox penis, so any ban would no doubt win support in both equine and bovine camps.

Of course, you can argue that culture should be above pandering to 21st century sensibilities: that in Spain, for instance, bulls should still be run through the streets of Pamplona or fought in the ring at Granada. I’d back the bull or the horse over the centuries old culture myself, but then I’m a lily-livered British liberal of the sort that used to weep uncontrollably through Animal Hospital.

Comments (5)

Whatever next, the Grand National being monitored to make sure the horses aren’t too tired from all that running?! I guess it’s a fine line, between entertainment and exploitation? But isn’t that the argument with the X-factor. Not meaning to open another can of worms. Thanks for the interesting insight Andrew…learn something new every day, as the saying goes.

Posted by Kim Rhodes • 30 July 2009, 11:39

Maybe horses are a bit ungainly to safely run in such a relatively tight space… so from buffalo to donkeys to horses, the next logical step is obviously… ostriches :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnKBQquzGXE

Posted by Matthew • 30 July 2009, 12:27

I went to Pamplona and ran the Bulls in my far-distance youth and believe me the bulls gave as good as they got on the run down to the ring. I saw many people carried off with all sorts of injury’s. Thanks for the unpleasant image of the ‘stretched Ox penis’!!

Posted by Matthew Harris • 30 July 2009, 12:34

GREAT BLOG (whoops) Andrew, and I quite agree with you. There’s always a noisy lobby of ‘traditionalists’ that are so easily infuriated at the thought of centuries of medieval cruelty being banned or even tampered with. I met a nice old geezer in Seville once who got very agitated at the thought of bull-fighting getting the chop. “What you don’t understand, you dim-witted Guardianista, (or words to that effect) is that the bulls, they love it. They love to fight.” Didn’t really have the words to tell him that it wasn’t exactly a fight once they’d given the poor beast more holes than a teabag, blinding him with blood then sent in someone looking like a carnival float in tights to drive him mad by waving a stupid pink curtain in his face before unheroically sticking a sword in his neck and killing him…

Posted by Johnny Bull • 31 July 2009, 14:25

And how could we have given yards of sympathy to Tommy Steele’s ‘Little White Bull’ if we had not been graced with the image of the fierce Torro stampeding down the streets to toss all interfering wayfarers and strays aside just to show his paternal love?

Even medieval Spanish culture pierced the hard nosed violent youth of 1950s England

Posted by Glen Innes • 31 July 2009, 15:25