Selected stories by Vladimir Pomortzeff

Spanish Horse Tamers

Photographs by Vladimir Pomortzeff

Young Galician horses lead a quite unconcerned life for almost the whole year. They just pasture freely all the year round in the endless green mountains of Galicia, an autonomous region in northern Spain. The idle ends in an appointed day of the summer when all horses are driven together down to a closed round area in a nearest village known as a 'curro', where a mass taming of unbroken horses takes place every year. The Galicians call this traditional national fiesta 'Rapa das bestas' or 'shearing of the beasts'. Brave local fighters known as 'aloitadores' have to saddle each of unbroken horses, maddened after their sudden remove from the mountains to the cramped curro, and then cut their tails and manes. After three days of unceasing stress all horses are driven back to the mountains for the rest of the year. The biggest horse taming in a Galician fashion takes place every year in the first weekend of July in the small village of Sabucebo, some 120 kilometers from the region capital Santiago de Compostela.