Horse Racing on the Streets of Rabat
Last night, as part of Rabat’s festa, Gozo’s main city hosted 36 (36!) horse races up it’s main street. The course was a straight-away, about a kilometre long and went up a seriously steep incline.
It was pretty fun, and definitely not a show for the tourists. There were a smattering of visitors around, but the majority of the fans were locals, drinking beer, smoking cigars and consulting race programs. I assume there was a schwack of gambling going on, though I didn’t actually spot any.
I’m sure it was pretty safe, but I liked the imagined danger of the horses (and harness racers) roaring past the crowds with nothing but a few feet between them. As you can see in this photo, the crowd actually stands in the middle of the road to get a better view until the horses get quite close.
I took a bunch of photos, and these were the fourteen best ones. It’s a busy day here, so I made extensive use of the poor man’s Photoshop–ye olde ‘Enhance’ button in iPhoto.
chris 