In most horse races, a whip lash in the face is considered bad manners, at least. When it happened twice last week to a jockey in Siena, Italy, he quit and let his whip-wielding rival win. Instead of being barred for life for such tactics, the winner was wined & dined, and a sonnet composed in his honor was distributed throughout the town.
In the Siena Polio, the world's oldest horse race,* anything goes. Since the jockeys ride for the honor of the Siena town wards (which bear such symbolic names as Giraffe, Dragon, Unicorn and Wave), partisan passions begin to rise...
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