Bulls whip up a frenzy on race day
Yoni Astuti, Contributor, Sumenep, East Java
Every competitor has to have the will to win. But it came as an unexpected shock to Matlani Basir, a 50-year-old employee at Torjon II elementary school in Sumenep, Madura island in East Java.
The overexcitement forced him to be supported by friends as he was led down the podium to the tent where other colleagues were resting.
Matlani was neither racing nor fighting. But the fact that his two-year-old bulls managed to win the Presidential Trophy at the annual traditional bull race on Nov. 11 at the Giling field in the village of Pengarangan, Sumenep, boosted his pride. His pairs finished first, putting aside the other 23 competitors from four regencies; Bangkalan, Sampang, Pamekasan and Sumenep.
Matlani's winning pairs, named Kor Manat, were purchased when they were barely six months old. Yanto Effendi -- an 11-year-old student at Rosong elementary school, Sepudi, Sumenep -- served as the pair's jockey. In 1985, Matlani's bulls also won first place in the losing category.
Matlani started his hobby of bull-racing way back in 1963 and is now the proud owner of five pairs of bulls.
For him and fellow bull-racers, no other prize is as important as the coveted Presidential Trophy. The trophy brings prestige, fame and respect to the owner of the bulls. Other prizes including a television, a motorcycle and other items are often given away to jockeys and supporting members of the crew to take care of the bulls.
The costs of preparation and care for the bulls far exceed the nominal value of the prizes. The intensive and proper care of the animals make bull-racing quite an expensive hobby. Around three to four months prior to the race, each bull is given a specially prepared concoction on a daily basis, consisting of herbs, 50 to 75 eggs, honey, coffee, pepper and so forth.
It costs more than Rp 10 million (US$943) to cover the care of each bull, including the payment for assistants. However, a winning pair can fetch a lucrative price of over Rp 100 million, though, when every rupiah is calculated for the entire costs up to the winning moment, it is still not profitable.
Apart from the special concoctions, the bulls gets a regular check-up and are taken for a weekly practice run by their jockeys.
The prestige and respect brought by the winning bulls usually make the owners feel reluctant to sell them and so they prefer to prepare the bulls for the next competition instead.
This year's race, scheduled for just one day, had to be extended to two days due to a protest from one of the semifinalists, who was declared a loser, in the last hours. The protest turned into a scuffle, as he hit a police officer on the cheek with a piece of wood with nails normally used by a jockey. To secure the area and avoid further unrest, the policemen fired his gun into the air to disperse the demonstrators.
On Nov. 12, the event took place more orderly. To win the Presidential Trophy, the bulls had to compete in races from the subdistrict up to regency levels. The final results were divided into two categories: the winner and the loser.
Matlani's Kor Manat finished first to claim the trophy and a Tossa motorcycle while the winner in the losing category was Satelit (Satellite) owned by M. Hamdan from Bangkalan regency.