At a cold and rainy Bitsa stadium in southern Moscow this weekend, human beings showed up in the thousands to watch the Dunhill trophy, for four years now Russia's premier horse-jumping competition. Growing in scope, the tournament echoes a time when horses and horsemanship occupied an exalted place in Russian culture.
"It's not quite like in Tolstoy, but it's getting there," said Maria Graznova, 22, one of the competition participants.
In his novels Lev Tolstoy described horse races where the riders themselves were members of Moscow's cultural elite, aristocrats like Count Vronsky who rode their horses over grueling obstacle courses in front of crowds of mesmerized princesses, only to dismount later and disappear into a nightlife of balls and liaisons with elegant society women like Anna Karenina.
Today's competitions are a different story. Like the races of Tolstoy's time, the participants are often army officers who ride in full uniform. But the modern officers live in humble barracks near the Rechnoi Vokzal, and they are paid wages of around 400,000 rubles a month that Vronsky would have laughed at. And if a modern-day Anna Karenina was in the stands this weekend, she was probably wearing a denim jacket, chain-smoking Rothmans, and muttering obscenities each time her favorite horse ran into an obstacle.
Still, the presence of money at the competition was undeniable. Except for the army officers and a few state-sponsored teams, the majority of entrants were from private equestrian clubs that brought expensive pure-bred hoses worth many thousands of dollars. And the parking lots were jammed with Mercedes and BMWs.
Horse jumping and equestrian sports have always been around in Russia, even during Soviet times, when the country regularly competed with limited success in Olympic competitions. But the sport's romantic image as the athletic passion of the aristocratic classes -- an image that was furthered by nearly every other great 19th-century Russian writer -- is only just now beginning to return after a 75-year absence.
"An analogous situation to what's happened in the past and in the West is now happening here," said Boris Kuzmin, director of the Bitsa club and trainer of two of the three top finishing horses. "Equestrian sports are becoming the passion of the rich, and Russia's new rich are eager to get involved with it."
The Dunhill trophy is a series of horse-jumping competitions that are held worldwide and culminate in a "Grand Slam" final, which this year will be held in Athens beginning on Sept. 29.
Of the 35 competitors from throughout the CIS, Sunday's three winners get a free trip with their horses to the final. Both first and second place were taken by members of the Bitsa club -- Natalia Anikova placed first and got a $750 prize with Harlan Simonia winning second and a $500 prize. Third place and $250 went to Vladimir Platov of Yaroslavl.
As with motocross and auto racing, it is not a profit-driven sport; admission to this weekend's event was free. Dunhill sponsored the event for promotion.
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