Nauryz Road Trip (Part 3 of 5)

While at the hippodrome, we saw several different events. One of them was wrestling. Often, when I think of wrestling I think of two strong men going at each other in a ring. Well, this is a bit different. First, the two men are sitting atop horses. Each one has his shirt off and has a piece of cloth tied around his stomach. This gives them a bit of a handle when wrestling. As far as I could tell, the goal was to force the other man off his mount. This became especially entertaining with a mob of about 100 people creating a circle around the official and two participants. It also was made a bit more interesting by the whips each man carried to try to encourage his horse to move they way that would be most helpful. Here are some shots I got of this new form of wrestling.