"Speed and Passion" on the Grassland, Different Jockey Club in the Village, Hexi Corridor | Secretary | Grassland
Dongfang Time and Space specially planned "Our Village Kicks off". Today, we are going to Gansu Province to take a look. Subei County, Jiuquan City, Gansu Province, is located in the northern part of the western end of the Hexi Corridor. Here, the snow capped mountains stretch endlessly, the Gobi is crisscrossing, and the grasslands and wetlands are nestled together. As a Mongolian Autonomous County, one of the great pleasures of the local people in the summer is horse racing. Recently, Ba Ligensang, the village chief of Jingou Village, has been busy organizing horse racing competitions.
These days, Bali Gensang has been driving on the mountain roads and grasslands. There are 65 households in the village, living in a particularly scattered area. Neighbors are as close as seven or eight kilometers and as far as forty or fifty kilometers. Whenever there is an emergency and we cannot reach each other, we have to drive and notify them in person.
Jin Gou Village Branch Secretary Bali Gensang: If you can't get through the phone, you just need to send WeChat. If you can't get through WeChat and the phone, you just need to go and receive notifications one by one.
Balgensan's urgent matter is to plan a horse racing event in mid July. In pastoral areas, March and April are the seasons for lambing and picking up lambs. Fleece cutting and shearing begin again in May and June. In July, the summer pasture transfer ends, and it can just take a while to calm down.
As soon as the cadres gathered together, they set the horse racing meeting for this month on July 14th. The task of inviting villagers to participate fell on the secretary of Jingou Village, Bali Gensang. In addition to expanding participation, competitiveness is also important. Bali Gensang, the seeded horse racer in previous years, also made use of his evening time to invite them as soon as possible.
Although every household raises horses, the villagers in Jingou Village rarely see horses at home. The horses are usually raised freely in the deep mountains, and the villagers only go to retrieve them when needed. Since receiving the notification of the horse race, in recent days, villagers can be seen riding horses, driving cars, and motorcycles searching for horses everywhere on the grassland of Jingou Village. The pasture here is often thousands of acres, and finding horses is not an easy task. The villager Selgrim's home was only 5 kilometers away from the racetrack, but the horses didn't know where they had wandered. The whole family searched for them all day and finally found them in the deep mountains 20 kilometers away from home.
In addition to the horses in this competition, he also set up two ponies for his two daughters, allowing them to adapt to the life on horseback early on.
Baligen Sang was not idle either. On the one hand, he had to arrange for on-site arrangements because the rain in the mountains would come soon. He also took out his simple yurt at home, just in case. In recent years, he has gained weight and is unable to race horses. However, due to his passion, he has also driven his herd back from the mountains and selected three horses to compete on his behalf, providing them to friends and relatives.
Jin Gou Village Branch Secretary Bali Gensang: Small horse racing clubs like ours are often held here, and now it has become normalized. Everyone loves horse racing. If a horse wins a place, everyone likes it.
On the last night before the competition, seeded athlete Gambart and his wife put their ethnic costumes in their luggage early on. Even for village level races, there should still be a sense of ceremony. The horses that are going to compete tomorrow should also quickly replenish their grass and comb their manes to make them more energetic.
Jin Gou Village villager Gang Bater: Get up early and feed a meal. After 5 hours, add some more feed. After another 5 hours, the horse will eat some grass. Anyway, everyone's feeding method is different, according to their own habits, according to their own horse's feeding mouth. The horse's paw is also crucial for this walking horse. It needs to be changed and trimmed around a month, just like a human nail.
Special tourism helps increase income, villagers love horse racing more
Find a horse to harness and supplement its nutrition. As the horse race approaches, every household is preparing for the competition. Previously, local herdsmen raised horses and sheep with a single income. In recent years, the local government has come up with many new ways to help the people increase their income. They develop deep processing of dairy products to increase the added value of agricultural and animal husbandry products. In addition, relying on the grazing industry, we also carry out characteristic tourism to attract tourists to experience grazing. In addition to grazing, the villagers started a farmhouse, and dozens of young people gradually returned to the village. The village has become lively, everyone's income has increased, and their enthusiasm for horse racing has also increased.
On July 14th, the day of the competition arrived. Early in the morning, the participating herdsmen either pulled horses or rode to the competition venue, passing by their neighbors. Bali Gensang also loaded the prize - three little lambs - into the car.
The racetrack is set up on a flat and lush pasture owned by Baligen Sang himself. At the site, the villagers were busy building yurts together, setting the starting and ending points. I haven't seen my neighbors and friends for a long time, and I took this opportunity to talk about income and plans. As the competition was about to begin, a temporary contestant suddenly appeared who had applied to participate. His name is Songbul and he has been working in the downtown area of Jiuquan. He only learned about horse racing the night before. Songbul grew up on a ranch in the village and loved horse racing very much. He immediately decided to return to the village to compete, set off at 5am, and arrived at the race site before the start of the race.
The horse racing event in the village was divided into two events: walking and running, with a total of 22 horses and 18 participants.
The horse racing event is a unique form of competition for Mongolian horses. Mongolian horses are not tall, but have thick limbs, good endurance, and can adapt to the harsh local environment. Walking a horse is not just about competing for speed, but also about observing the unique steps of the horse.
The horse racing event is the most lively, regardless of the age of the horse, the competition is about who will cross the finish line first. In order to improve speed, some athletes will remove their stirrups to reduce weight, and the three sheep prize is also prepared for this event.
After several rounds of competition, the temporary contestant Songbul narrowly crossed the finish line and won the championship. He also successfully picked up the largest lamb.
Jin Gou Village villager Song Bu Er: I thought about it. I told you before the competition that I would take the first place and achieve my goal. I will do my best.
Songbule, a villager from Jingou Village: I was born with a love for horses. This is the feeling that my parents gave me pocket money. When I was in college, for example, if I gave 2000 yuan a month, I might buy horse gear for 1500 yuan. It was not in a big city and there were no horses, so I put it on my bedside and just looked at it.
Selgrim, who participated with his two daughters, only finished third due to a last-minute change of horses. But bringing his daughter to experience horse racing culture and the spirit of hard work has also achieved his goal.
Villager Sergrim from Jingou Village: We still have to fight for it in the future. If we can't do it this year, we can do it next year. Besides, this year's horses are small and have just started to be tamed. We can gradually do it next year.
Selghlin's eldest daughter Alimeng: As for horseback riding, you can't run too fast because you're about to fall. So I said that you can get the highest score as long as you participate and do your best.
Jin Gou Village Branch Secretary Bali Gensang: Our children here have all loved this sport, and today they have also seen it. The children brought their ponies over to ride and play, it's great, and now they all love this sport. In a few years, they will become jockeys on the racetrack, and they will also be able to participate in the sport of horse racing.
The horse race has ended, and the villagers who participated and watched the race are still immersed in excitement. They are discussing their experiences in raising and racing horses, as well as their future development. They are planning to build a standard racecourse, a yurt experience area, and a milking experience area to add another spark to the development of cultural tourism. At present, the local and neighboring roads in the old city of Yumen are being urgently constructed. After completion, they can be connected with the Hexi Corridor corridor to attract more tourists.
Our village has started the competition: here is the appearance that rural revitalization should have
Whether it's "Village Super" in Rongjiang, Guizhou or table tennis in small villages in Zibo, Shandong; We can still feel the pure joy of villagers participating in sports activities at the township volleyball tournament in Wenchang, Hainan and the grassland horse racing event in Subei, Gansu. The flourishing development of rural sports events in China is ultimately due to the fact that "life has improved, and spiritual needs have increased.". The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that Chinese path to modernization is the modernization of common prosperity for all people, and the modernization of coordinated material civilization and spiritual civilization. These close to the ground and popular sports events condense the spirit of Chinese villages, inject new impetus into rural economic development, and let us see what rural revitalization should look like, which is a vivid interpretation of the practice of Chinese path to modernization.
