Global Horse Culture

The plumes of St. Alfio

I must admit my favorite part of the ornate harnesses of the horses at the St. Alfio festival in Sicily is the plumage. The plumes on these horses reach epic proportions, and are unlike anything I've seen elsewhere. They are simply spectacular!

Beautiful harnesses at the St. Alfio festival

This post features details of the bridles and harnesses of the horses at the St. Alfio festival in Sicily, which reader Al Zammataro was kind enough to send me.

St. Alfio: the puppets

Sicily has a strong tradition of puppet theater, featuring legends of ancient battles and heroic deeds. You can read much more about the fascinating tradition in this article and this one.

St. Alfio: the battle scenes

The harnesses worn by the horses at the St. Alfio festival often include elaborate embroidered, painted or beaded battle scenes.

The carts of the St. Alfio festival

Elaborately decorated carts are part of the tradition at the St. Alfio festival in Sicily.

The return of the amazing St. Alfio festival

 Al Zammataro wins the award for biggest fan of Global Horse Culture! Last year he sent me some snapshots from an incredible festival in Sicily, where spectacularly-adorned horses and carts are paraded in celebration of St. Alfio's festival day.

This year, he sent me more photos - taken by a friend of his - with even more detail of the costumes, harnesses, plumes and elaborate carts. There are even puppets acting out legendary battle scenes mounted on the horses!

Ringed parade tack

Something you'll come across on occasion in parts of Brazil (I've seen it mostly in the state of São Paulo) is parade tack made of brass rings. Here is an example of a breast collar, being shown to me by a student at the Universidade do Cavalo, in Sorocaba:

 

Horses of Heaven

My friend Angela Swedberg introduced me to fellow beadworker Al Zammataro, who recently attended the annual festival of Sant'Alfio in Sicily. The story and photos he shared with me are unbelievable and should be quite an eyeful for those of you interested in unusual horse adornment!! The full set of photos follows in the rest of the post.

More on skijoring

I posted a while back about skijoring, the wild sport where horses tow skiers. There are many variations (over obstacles, on a track, in the backyard). See this older post for some links to organizations.

I recently found this new, longer (four minute) video documenting the preparation for and running of a skijoring race in Switzerland. There's lots of fun footage and details of how the races are set up and how the horses are equipped. It can't be embedded, but you should check it out on YouTube.

Trotting (and pacing) races under saddle

In the US we usually think of Standardbreds as harness racing horses. But here and in other parts of the world the Standardbred and similar breeds are also raced under saddle. The US Trotting Association has an interesting article about the hows and whys of under saddle racing here.

Here's a video of such a race in France:

Prix du Cornulier 2006
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One interesting feature of under saddle racing is that many of the riders are women. This has been true historically, too. The famous Standardbred Greyhound broke a record back in 1940 with a woman riding.

And more recently the speedy mare Moni Maker broke that record, with jockey Julie Krone riding.

A nice little 10 minute documentary tells the story of Moni Maker's achievement, with footage of historic races, an interview with Julie Krone, and Moni Makers record breaking trot.

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.