Spanish horse riders leap flames in celebration

spain horses1

The bravest throw their arms in the sky as their horses leap over the flames, hooves stamping on the blaze as they pass over. Others, more cautious, go around the crackling logs and just brush the fire.

“It is as much a tradition for the animals as for us,” said 37-year-old Jose Maria Nunez, who came with her two children. “The animals don’t suffer, they’re used to it,” he said.

“It is a beautiful tradition, a great feeling, you cannot describe it. You have to live it on a horse, go through the flames, feel the heat, see how the horse manages to clear it,” he said.

Nunez has been coming to the festival with his horse Estrella for eight years. This year, for the first time, his son Alejandro is joining the tradition by riding the course alone.

“You have to pass the horses through the flames so nothing bad will happen to them for a year,” the boy explains proudly.

Among the riders, many young people have taken up the torch from their parents and their forefathers.

At just 14, Sonsoles Hernandez Martin is one of the few girls or women to take part.

“I have been riding it alone for three years. My parents ride, too, and I have been riding with my father since I was very young, since I was two,” she said.

“There is no danger. The tradition goes back to the Middle Ages and nothing has ever happened. It is a feeling you have to live through. If you don’t ride, you don’t live it,” she said, smiling radiantly before launching on horseback into the night.

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