Mandela's land is racing country

The green hills and valleys around Qunu, sprinkled with white and turquoise huts, will be the world's most watched landscape this weekend. What billions of television viewers won't know is that this is a place of horse racing.

The traditional horse racing of the Xhosas is a vibrant, thriving activity with a tradition going back nearly 200 years.

Throughout the Eastern Cape, dozens of local racing clubs stage regular, sometimes weekly, race meetings - or umdyarho.

I can't find any reference to Nelson Mandela going to umdyarho, but it's likely he did, for they've long been an important part of Xhosa village life.

One former ANC president, Dr Alfred Xuma, did ride in races as a youngster. The horsemanship Xuma learnt at Manzama stood him in good stead when he needed cash urgently to further his studies in the US in the 1920s and landed work as a stable groom in Minnesota.

The Thoroughbred Horseracing Trust, the independent body that protects the future of formal racing, has reached out in recent years to traditional racing - sometimes known as informal or "bush" racing. The trust provides support in cash and kind, as well as organisational and veterinary advice.

Traditional racing is starting to look more like the sort of thing we see at Turffontein or Scottsville, with entry fees making up prize money; jockeys using coloured silks and short-stirrup riding styles. But plenty of the amateur, rural flavour remains, with no running rails, just a ploughed ditch to mark a course across the veld; battle chanting from the enthusiastic connections; and beaded ornamentation for the horses.

It is said Xhosa people used to ride oxen in races before the 1820 settlers introduced horses to the area; and that the earliest horse races had a big pot of beer marking the finishing line, with the winner claiming the right to quaff the lot.

Nowadays thoroughbreds are raced, along with the crossbreeds familiar to anyone who has been to rural Eastern Cape - though not in the same races.

Different race types include umphalo, or pure speed, galloping contests; umhambo, or tripling races; and umkwelo, or endurance tests over 6km or more.

An important annual meeting is run at Ntaba Kondodo, the spiritual mountain, while there are regular meetings at Mount Frere, Qumbu, Malungani and Tsolo Junction.

As in formal racing, the principal bush raceday is in KwaZulu-Natal - the Dundee July, which takes place a few weeks after the Durban July and to which "raiders" from Eastern Cape arrive in numbers in search of big cash prizes.

There's no organised wagering on umdyarho but personal bets are placed among horse owners and racegoers.

So, we won't be seeing umdyarho on Tellytrack any time soon; more's the pity, as it looks way more entertaining than the Swedish harness racing we're subjected to.

Incidentally, a feature movie has been made about umdyarho called King Naki and the Thundering Hooves, telling the story of "a man's obstinate persistence in the face of failure - pursuing a dream of victory to escape poverty".