The winning bull team, ridden by Chao Dieu, powers toward the finish line to win the Bull Race Festival last Saturday in southern An Giang Province.

A farmer from southern An Giang Province, Chao Col, said he took more care cleaning his racing bull than he did when he cleaned himself.

Each village is represented by a bull racing team at the September harvest off-season event. In the harvest season, the prized animals go back to work pulling plows on rice paddies.

Van Phuong from An Giang’s Thoai Son District joked that his bull was the second most important thing in his life, only after his wife and his children.

Phuong said he had bought his bull, Po, in Cambodia a few years ago for VND10.5 million (US$630), because it was such an outstanding creature.

He said he was offered twice what he’d paid for it when he got it home, but had refused. “Money’s much easier to earn than getting a good bull,” he said.

According to Phuong, a good bull must satisfy a number of criteria, including big, broad hooves, a straight back, big knees and a wide chest.

Every year around a month before the race, the bulls receive special attention to groom them for the big event.

A farmer from An Giang’s Tri Ton District, Cam Tu, said she had prepared a special menu for her bull a month before this year’s race, which took place last Saturday.

“I fed him with fresh grass, coconut juice, raw chicken eggs and soda,” she said. “We had to eat less so we could save the money to buy cooking for him.”

Tu said her family had pulled a cart full of food, especially for their bull to eat, from their home to the festival.

At the festival, the competing bulls are kept in separate roped off enclosures.

“Some bulls get spooked when strangers approach them,” said Van Hiep from Ta Danh Commune in Tri Ton District.

“The owners would never allow anyone, even their best friends, to come near their bulls,” he said.

Winners take the glory

Most racers said it was the pride of winning not the prize money that was important. Owners of champion bulls are respected for bringing fame to their villages.

The winning bull team also brings a bumper rice harvest and good health for all the village’s bulls, according to villagers.

For Khmer people, the bull racing is the most popular part of the much bigger Dolta Festival – the ethnic group’s second-largest festival behind Chol Chnam Thmay.

This year, the races started in the morning of September 27 in Tri Ton District, with 70 pairs of bulls competing in front of 30,000 spectators.

The track was a muddy, slippery paddy field behind Ta Miet Pagoda, around a rectangular area larger than a football field, 60 meters wide and 160meters long.

The bulls race in teams of two, controlled by jockeys who ride behind them on rake like buggies without wheels.

They make three laps of the racecourse in the 1,320 meter race.

Some nai, or jockeys, have participated in the annual race for decades and won many titles. Chao Pi, Chao Chieu, Van Tang and Van Dat are some of the popular winners.

Reported by Tien Trinh