Banning the Italian Horse Races
Animal-welfare activists are demanding that the famous Siena Palio and other Italian horse races are shut down as concerns grow over the number of animals dying on the streets of ancient towns.
Staged in Siena's steep Piazza del Campo amid medieval pageantry and thousands of cheering spectators, the Palio has pitched jockeys from the city's neighbourhoods against each other every year on this course since 1659. But the leading Italian animal welfare group LAV (Anti-Vivisection League) is calling for the event to be scrapped, citing the deaths of 48 horses between 1970 and 2007 after collisions and crashes on the tightly curved course.
"We believe there shouldn't be any kind of event like this held," said the group's president Gianluca Felicetti. "Before they raced horses, Siena's neighbourhoods competed with bouts of bareknuckle boxing and we have requested they go back to that."
Calls for a curb on all Italy's street races increased last month after the horrific death of a horse in Ronciglione, a picturesque lakeside town near Rome where every year riderless horses are sent charging through the centre.
The animal slipped on rain-slicked cobbles and crashed into metal barriers, collapsing to the ground in spasms of agony inches from shocked spectators. "If it was up to me, the Siena Palio would be scrapped, but at least they are careful whereas Ronciglione should definitely be banned, because they paid no attention to safety," said Carla Rocchi, the head of the National Association for Animal Protection.
Michela Brambilla, the tourism minister, increased pressure on the racing world this month by dropping the Palio from the country's shortlist of candidates for Unesco's list of intangible cultural heritage, citing the national divisions over the event. Her views reflect a growing disquiet in Europe over animals in sport, reflected by Catalonia's ban on bullfighting last year and the shock in Britain last weekend as two horses died in the Grand National. "We would like to see the Grand National banned, and I support the efforts of Italians seeking to stop the Palio," said Andrew Tyler, the director of the UK organisation Animal Aid.
In Siena, Pierluigi Millozzi, who organises the race, made no apology for the fatal crashes, arguing that the Palio had passed new government safety guidelines with flying colours. "For us the horse is the most important element, and to say we don't care for them ignores the whole spirit of the Palio," he said.
Ten colourfully dressed, bareback riders thunder around a dirt track three times in about two minutes at the Palio, which is normally held on 2 July and 16 August every year.
The culmination of days of medieval pageantry, the event brings together the town's 17 quarters or contradas and – in a competition where stopping a rival contrada is as crucial as winning – jockeys are allowed to thrash their rivals, and their horses, with whips made from dried and stretched bull penises. Jockeys regularly fall from their horses, and in 2004 a horse that slipped was trampled, as stewards failed to stop the race, and died from its injuries.
Felicetti, who coordinates a cross-party group of 40 MPs defending animal rights, said that his appeals to authorities in Siena to scrap the race had been ignored. "They behave like it's still the middle ages and they are an autonomous republic," he said.
Millozzi argued that there had been no fatal falls since 2004. "Things are a lot safer since we switched from pure-bred horses to mixed-blood types which are stronger," he said. Organisers have also disputed the claims of 48 fatalities since 1970, saying that the real number was 40, of which eight died during warm-ups rather than in the race itself.
Whichever figures are right, horses stand a greater chance of dying in the Grand National than the Palio. Twenty-seven horses suffered fatal injuries at Aintree between 1970 and 2007 as they attempted jumps measuring up to 5ft high and 11ft long. That is fewer than the Palio, but the Italian race is held twice a year, the National just once. "Statistics show the National is more dangerous and getting worse," said Dene Stansall, a horse racing consultant at Animal Aid. Felicetti said that he was not just campaigning against the Siena Palio but all Italy's local horse races, where 19 horses have suffered fatal injuries since 2003. Police have placed the mayor of Ronciglione and other officials under investigation after last month's fatality.
Felicetti is also taking on religious events in small towns that feature cruel contests, including the southern sport of forcing horses to drag weighted-down carts across ditches, or the festival of the Madonna in Mirabella Eclano, in Campania, where the crowd cheers as bulls spend six hours pulling a 25-metre obelisk for 2km.
In Sicily, mafia bosses are said to keep race horses closeted in dark garages, bringing them out to compete in illegal races on sealed-off, 3km stretches of country road at dawn, reportedly forcing them to sniff cocaine believing it makes them more competitive.
The Observer, 17 April 2011
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