In horseracing, winning is everything. Set
against the reality of everyday life, how-
ever, the orthodox version of the sport re-
mains, in the words of the late Timeform
founder Phil Bull, a "magnificent triviality."
In Siena, home of the historic and ex-
traordinary biannual Palio, this could not
be further from the truth. A 90-second
clattering of hooves around the old town
square in July and August it may be, but to
grow up in Siena is to accept one fact: the
Palio is life.
Into one of the town's 17 contrade,
or districts, named mostly after animals,
each Sienese resident is born with loyal-
ty to that neighbourhood imprinted from
conception like DNA. The manifestation
of that lifelong commitment to one's
contrada is in the ancient rivalry of the
town's famous horse races which trace back
some 800 years. Having initially been run
through the tight high-walled streets, the
Palio graduated in the 16th century to its
now-familiar home in the Piazza del Campo,
Siena's open heart being transformed on
two stifling evenings of every year into an am-
phitheatre of no less gladiatorial spectacle
than that once witnessed in the Colosseum.
