No one knows for sure when it began or exactly why, but official record formalizes the event starting in 1310. By that time, it was already an institution. I’ve wanted to witness the spectacle firsthand since I learned of it more than 30 years ago. The Palio of the Contrade, the raw, primitive, visceral horse race with murky origins wrapped in myth that takes place twice every summer in Siena, Italy, captured my imagination from an early age. This is passion, intensity, and intrigue incarnate.

Each July 2 and then again on Aug. 16, mercenary jockeys pound bareback three times around the dirt track of Siena’s Piazza del Campo before a crowd of 60,000 patriots and pilgrims. Each jockey, chosen by each contrada according to an ancient anything-goes system of bribery and backdoor deals agreed with handshakes, is handed a nerbo, a whip made of ox sinew, as he enters the track, with which he is free… indeed, encouraged… to beat and block the other jockeys and their horses.