Palio, pt 2

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Originally to Allen, my brother:

Oh my goodness! Yes, it's like a cross between mad max and nascar, but with horses. There wasn't any video of this year's race online yet, so I had to post an older video. But Paulo and I were watching the local coverage afterward, and we saw one rider crash. Another rider crashed, but by then the leaders were too far ahead to have caught that one.

In any case, it doesn't matter whether the jockey finishes - it's all about whose *horse* finishes first (take note that the rider ride bare-back - no saddles). So the horses are left in on the course, even after the jockeys have been pulled to safety. As the two leaders were just leaning into the last turn, "HELLO!" - there's a big black horse just trotting around the same corner in the opposite direction. Scary to watch, but everything was ok.

Because of the confusion, there was a photo finish. At first, one colnago's flag was hoisted in the main viewing window (the Shell), and people started celebrating. Then some guy appeared at the window, took down the Shell's flag and hoisted the Goose's flag. With the utmost seriousness, he gave the Shell the italian equivalent of the finger. So awesome.

-Eric

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