A Rapa das Bestas
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By m.p. - Jun 22, 2009 - 1:37 PM
Fighting horses to the ground in Galicia, Spain

The strength of man against beast is the focus of a centuries-old tradition in Galicia where ‘A Rapa das Bestas’ – ‘Cropping the Beasts’ involves wrestling untamed horses to the ground, and clipping their manes and tails. Foals born in the year are branded.

It takes place throughout the summer in the region, where hundreds of wild horses are rounded up in the mountains of Spain’s most north western autonomous community and taken down to the villages for cropping. Perhaps the most famous event is in Sabucedo, a small village in Pontevedra which holds the Rapa das Bestas over a three-day period at the beginning of July. It differs from other Rapas in that no ropes or other tools are seen - just bare hands and skill to wrestle the untamed horses to the ground.

There’s a legend to the history of the tradition in Sabucedo: that in the mid-16th century, two elderly sisters prayed to Sabucedo’s patron saint, San Lorenzo, to deliver the people of the plague which had struck the village. The village was saved and, in return, the sisters offered a pair of horses which were set free in the mountains – the beginnings of the herds which now live in the wild above the village.

The first record of the Sabucedo Rapa as a festival was at the beginning of the 18th century, when the ‘beasts’ were brought down from the mountains for cropping and the branding of the new foals, an event - celebrated with copious amounts of wine – with a two-fold purpose: the horses’ hygiene, and to keep track of the herds.

The event in Sabucedo was declared National Tourist Interest in 1963 and International Interest in 2007. It takes place over the first Saturday, Sunday and Monday of July, starting with an early morning mass on the Saturday. Then at around 7am, the herders set off in search of the beasts, more than 600 horses divided into 14 herds which live in the wild across more than 200 km of mountain land. The local population is normally little more than 150 people, but numbers swell every summer, as hundreds descend upon this tiny village to watch the spectacle.

Visitors are allowed to take part in herding the horses to bring them down from the mountain, but it is only the locals who are permitted to take the part of the ‘aloitadores’, the local horse wrestlers whose skill is needed to subdue the beasts for clipping and branding. The patron saint, Lorenzo, is asked for his protection while they perform this task.

The herding can take the best part of the morning, as these noble animals are brought down from the hills to the local corral, a centuries-old stone amphitheatre with space for up to a thousand people. Teenage boys and girls are initiated into the Rapa – supervised by the experienced aloitadores - by separating the foals from the herd, and driving them into a separate corral.

The first curro, or corral, begins with the aloitadores working as a team to bring their chosen horse down. It’s a risky business and can take a number of hours to work through the 200 or so beasts which are clipped on each of the three days of the Rapa. Only the experienced are allowed to take part and there’s even a reference in Camilo José Cela’s ‘Mazurca para dos muertos’, where Spain’s Nobel Laureate speaks of ‘bravery which was only comparable to that of the aloitadores of Sabucedo’.

Each day’s work ends with partying into the night, and at the end of the third ‘curro’ on the Sunday, the horses are herded up to the mountains again, where they are set free until the following year’s Rapa das Bestas.

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Spain Features : Fiestas

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