Horse Parade
During the holiday week in Costa Rica, a highlight of the Zapote Festival is the Day of the Horseman—a parade with a contingent of ox carts and handlers leading the way, followed by as many as 4,000 horsemen and horsewomen.
Yesterday, my daughter J. and I had a small, albeit colorful horse parade of our own, replete with rainbow-colored trappings. After mucking out the corrals, we climbed aboard her Andalusian mare, Caprichosa. Our only tack was the tie-dyed halter and lead rope I gave J. for Christmas.
The white mare carried us bareback in our coveralls and jeans towards the mesa and along the old AT&SF road. Her bell-shaped hooves lifted from the ground in great fancy arcs as she trotted along the rutted track where just last autumn we’d been challenged by one of the biggest rattlers I’ve ever seen. The horse snorted, full of herself and the day, neck arched, chest puffed up like big white bellows. J. wrapped her arms around my waist, and I took one hand off of the rainbow “reins” to point to our three-headed shadow outlined in sharp relief on the earth by the winter sun.
J. clucked to Caprichosa from where she rode behind me, and we found ourselves striking off into the easy, rolling rhythm of a canter, Andalusian style. Like riding on the back of a fluffy white cloud, which was pretty much the gist of the song we began to make up, singing at the top of our lungs beneath the winter sky.
Caprichosa’s flea bitten ears swiveled back and forth. I’m sure she was wondering why we were so noisy.
What a parade.
The Costa Rican equestrians compete for a number of cash prizes on their Day of the Horseman, but the most important motivation is to continue a Christmas tradition that has endured since the end of the 19th century.
J., Caprichosa, and I may have started our own new tradition, circa 2005.
Photo Credits: roman-man; Kent Gilbert
Sources: AM Costa Rica; AP
