TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1021151
"There was an increasing recognition that the eyes of the world were on the Palio and there's now a whole raft of safe- ty measures that have been put in." The Palio horses are now more robust Anglo-Arabs instead of Thoroughbreds, bred mostly in Sardinia and Tuscany, and they can't race until they are five. Ramzan continues, "It's lovely to see old- er horses than we're used to in flat racing. They become really famous and come back year after year. They have to run at least twice in the spring season—there's a track just outside Siena which is config- ured in exactly the same way as the Palio so the vets and trainers can see how they cope with that. The horses are subject to vet checks at the beginning of the train- ing process and as the Palio season of July and August approaches, if you have a horse that you want to run in Siena, you have to present the horse to a vet clinic on the edge of Siena where they are x-rayed, scanned, and blood tested. It's really to ensure that only the soundest horses come into the city." He adds, "The city of Siena has also brought in drug testing at the initial vet checks and then for the final Palio horses. The take blood once they've been select- ed and can be tested again in any of the days running up to the race." Ramzan ascertains that with the large area of padding around the infamous San Martino bend very few injuries are in- curred there, however dramatic the race images may look.