Racegoers searching for sophistication and the height of chic at the close of the summer season head for Glorious Goodwood in the first week of August where, among a sea of panamas and colourful dresses, thousands jostle for room over five days at the quintessential English garden party.
At exactly the same time, more than 4,700 miles away, a panoply of luminous Tibetan tents heralds the opening of the annual week-long Litang horse racing festival. In pinks, yellows and blues, they dot the fields of Litang like strings of paper lanterns.
People may have raced on the South Downs in Sussex since 1814 and in Litang for more than 400 years, but one thing's for sure - where horses race, skulduggery and scandal will never be far away. Goodwood was overshadowed this year by fraud charges hanging over Britain's foremost jockey, Kieren Fallon. In Litang, this year's festival had to be abandoned midweek after a crowd of Tibetan nomads ransacked a local police station as a result of a dispute about who came third in the week's big race. (One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed the real winner had been supplanted in the rankings by a horse owned by a government official.)
Each year more than 50,000 attend the festival in a setting that would make any British racing official jealous. Litang, deep in the southwest Chinese province of Sichuan, stands at an altitude of 1,350ft - which makes the customary complaints of spectators struggling up the hill for a day's racing at Bath, Britain's highest racecourse at 820ft, seem small beer.
The crowds on the Litang plain, once a battlefield, erupt as war cries ring out. Riders in sumptuous brocades, carrying rifles, bows and arrows or even swords, goad their mounts at hurtling speed while demonstrating supreme skills of horsemanship. Spectators throng close as the jockeys complete feats of balance - swinging from one side of their pony to the other, even travelling with their body parallel to the ground - and sharpest accuracy as they pull their rifles through to fix and fire upon long-range targets.
