Galicians were involved in taming bestas (beasts) as early as the Bronze Age. With all this history behind it, the Sabucedo region in Spain continues to guard jealously the secrets surrounding a tradition which unfolds all over this evocative land which kicked off last month until next month.

Only seasoned travellers and stockbreeders normally have the privilege of seeing a group of wild horses galloping at full speed in the Galician sierra. For other less fortunate people there is, every weekend until next month, a municipality holding its own rapa das bestas, an ancient rite that has now become a spectacle attracting many tourists.

The rapa takes place in the curro, a traditional corral where the owners take all the beasts that have been rounded up to divide them up into groups the day before the big event. When the action gets underway the most expert stockbreeders grapple with the animal until they are able to control it enough to brand it and cut off its mane. Once the struggle is over a wild fiesta begins, celebrating the subduing of the animal. The curros are hidden away in the mountains of the north and centre of Galicia, sprinkled among the massifs close to the coast of La Coruña and Pontevedra. The latter hosts the majority of the celebrations, unlike Ourense, where the last rapas took place years ago because, as the locals say, “The wolves eat our horses”.

In some places, the popularity of the celebrations has even spread beyond Galicia.

A colourful programme of varied and lively fairs and romerías also catch the eye, including the horse fair of Santa Comba, where the horses have to be at their very best to pass the detailed examination of Galician and Portuguese stockbreeders.