Celebrating the Palio Winner

Celebrating the Palio Winner

Photographing the victorious frenzy

I quickly gathered my equipment and headed toward the finish line. In less than a minute after the finish, the track was covered with celebrants. The scene was unbelievably wild, chaotic and ecstatic! I made my way through the crowd to where the winning contrada, Leocorno…Unicorn was joyfully leading the winning horse through the throng of revelers. Everyone was cheering and shouting ‘Ugo Sanchez’…so now I knew the jockey’s last name too! But, the jockey was nowhere to be seen. It turned out that the jockey, whatever his name, was in the hospital from his spill into the stands and the delirious crowd was cheering ‘Ugo Sanchez’, the name of the winning, rider less horse!

The entire Campo was swarming with excited, happy, exultant members of the Leocorno contrada. All decked out in their orange, white and blue colors and unicorn pictures. Many of them had teething rings in their mouths, wore diapers and pushed baby strollers and drank from baby bottles filled with wine while screaming at the top of their lungs with tears streaming down their cheeks.

I was able to maintain my position to take pictures even with the surging crowd all around me. I was right in front of ‘Ugo’ who was being lead by a couple of men who really knew how to keep the winner under control despite the surging crowd all around him, trying to touch any part of Ugo that they could. They kept him under control despite the ear splitting racket caused by shouts, drums and other loud instruments. Ugo, completely surrounded by the admiring multitude, making his triumphant circuit of the Campo was preceded and followed by triumphant drumming and his adoring, noisy fans.

‘Ugo’ was finally led out of the campo to be blessed at the Santa Maria di Provenza church and resume celebrating in the contrada. With him and his followers now departed, the campo became much more subdued.

The restaurants around the piazza began setting out tables and chairs on the sand track where the horses raced only an hour ago and where the Palio’ the banner, awarded to the winners, was paraded around the square on a horse drawn cart.

The moon was rising over Il Campo next to the tower, beautifully bathing the old buildings with a soft glow…making for a beautiful ending to the long, exciting day. Cindy and I found one another not long after Ugo left the Campo. Before we found our table, we came across long time collectors of mine, Larry Deutsch and his wife seated at another restaurant enjoying the warm, romantic evening. What a coincidence! I hadn’t seen Larry for years since that had purchased work from me in LA. I took their picture and eventually sent a copy to them in Nebraska. A few years later, Zeny R and I saw Larry at a show in Scottsdale where he had a job at one of the hospitals.

We had dinner al fresco on the track and walked back to our hotel at about ten pm. What a day we had experienced; so many sights and sounds. They will remain with us for as long as we live…although, some of the small details may be lost to our memory.

In my next post I’ll detail how this whole Palio adventure began.

Zeny