I am afraid I´m not Cristina, but I can tell you that the Palio is run twice a year (unless something special has happening, there was one in September 2000, and I think that there was one after the end of WWII, but I wasn´t born back then :)) ).

We watched this August race while spending a weekend in Madrid. Surfing across the channels we found that RAI 1 was showing the race (well, the beginning, it was kind of difficult to get all the horses in line) and we were lucky enough that our hotel had also RAI 2, because they had to move there the program. It was taking so much time for the race to begin ... It was a really amazing thing, and we were watching it on TV. I can´t imagine how it will be in the real life ...

Yesterday it came up an article on our local paper saying that two of the horses have been slaughtered afterwards due to the injuries they suffered during the race.

A couple of useful links (afraid the first one is in italian ...) : http://www.comune.siena.it/contenuti/palio/palio_index.htm http://www.travelnotes.org/Travel/aug12.htm

Kind regards, Covadonga Bilbao - Spain