Matsuri da! (85): And they’re off!

MAY IS THE MONTH for the sport of kings in the United States, as the Kentucky Derby was run two weeks ago and the Preakness Stakes was held on Saturday. The third leg of America’s Triple Crown of thoroughbred racing will be at Belmont in two more weeks.

In Japan, May is the month for another famous horserace, held two days after the Derby this year. This one doesn’t involve pari-mutuel betting, racetrack touts, mint juleps, or a wreath of roses around the neck of the winning nag. It was the annual Kurabe-uma Festival at the Kamowake Ikazuchi Shinto shrine in Kyoto run in conjunction with Boys’ Day on the fifth. The shrine itself dates from 678, making it the oldest in the city, and it was already more than 400 years old when the first Ritual of the Racehorses, as it is sometimes called, was held in the late 11th century during the reign of the Horikawa Tenno (emperor).

The race was originally a court festival that started during the Heian period in supplication for a good harvest and peace, but later came to be conducted by military officers as a demonstration of equestrian skill. An archery competition is held the day before. (This is Boys’ Day, after all.)

Instead of a group of up to 20 horses running counterclockwise around a circular track for two or more kilometers (or clockwise in Japan and Great Britain), the horses and riders are divided into two groups of 12 each, called literally “the left side” and “the right side”, and each team sends out a horse and jockey to gallop 150 meters down a straight-line turf track on the shrine grounds. That eliminates the possibility of such wagering options as the perfecta or wheeling a quinella, but then again the Racing Form isn’t sold in stalls outside the torii.

Kurabe-uma, incidentally, means “comparing horses”, which is not the usual word for horse racing in Japan. In addition, jockeys are normally called kishu, but the riders at the Kurabe-uma are referred to as norijiri, or a combination of the words for “ride” and “buttocks”. Western jockeys wear what are called silks, and while costumes of the norijiri might be made from silk, that would be the only resemblance. Their duds also date from the Heian period and are identical to those worn by gagaku musicians.

Once the race is underway, however, the jockeys behave just as jockeys do the world over–the norijiri urge on their mounts by shouting “hyah” and applying the whip judiciously. As with many festivals involving a competition between two groups, a bumper crop is assured if one of the groups wins. In the Kurabe-uma, that is the left side, and this year’s results ensure that few people will be going hungry in the Kyoto area anytime soon.

For more information on the shrine, also known as the Kamigamo shrine, try the link above. For more information on Kurabe-uma, try this link from the Encyclopedia of Shinto (which also has a link on the right sidebar.) Clicking on the photo at the bottom right of the page runs a brief video of the event.

The Kurabe-uma is just one of the festivals held by the shrine this month. It also conducted the elegant Aoi Festival last week, and you can try this link for an Ampontan report on last year’s event. The second photo above is from this year’s festival, however.