how beautiful on the mountains...: pacuan kuda

this is something i’ve noticed (which has nothing to do with the rest of this blogpost): in my group of indonesian friends, there are many who are loud and dramatic and like to dominate a conversation. and there are three of us who prefer to watch the conversation swirl around us. those three are me, atik, and hotjaga. often, atik doesn’t get to hang out with us, and so there have been many occasions where hotjaga and i have been able to have some good conversations while all our friends are screaming and carrying on rambunctiously about something totally different.

because of these many conversations, hotjaga knows that something that i miss from home is being around animals. he also knows that i have two horses in america and that when i was little, i reallyreallyreally wanted to be a jockey when i grew up. of course, that phase probably only lasted about 2 weeks, but i still remember it.

and because he knows that, hotjaga invited me to join his family last sunday at the horse races outside town! i got to watch several different heats of various distances. i sat RIGHT beside the track, and for the first several races, i was right in front of the starting gate. cool stuff. i was also right beside about a dozen 8 year old boys who were having the time of their life.

they especially enjoyed the part where the crazy muslim lady thought it would be appropriate to strip to her underwear and dance for us between races. the officials carrying the sticks didn’t find it so amusing when they chased her off the grounds.

hotjaga ended up with my big camera for most of the day. he really is getting to be quite the pro. i quickly slipped into the mindset of “you see one horse race, you’ve seen them all.” not to say that i was bored, but photographing them got old, horse after horse after horse. anyways, here’s some snapshots of the event, most of which were taken by pak hot.

down the homestretch!

ok, so this horse is pretty much amazing. almost as amazing as the expressions on the 3 guys in the background.... (read the next caption)

this guy was easily the tiniest horse in the race. he looked like a donkey about to try and race thoroughbreds out there when they walked him to the start gate. when the race started, his gate DIDN’T OPEN, but they didn’t call a mis-start. he finally forced his way through after the other horses were about 5 – 8 lengths ahead and he took off... and never slowed down. they went once around the 1000 meter track, and he won by about 3 lengths. hero for the day.