Agroaldea
PARTICIPANTS WILL HAVE TO PASS FIVE TESTS WITH TEAMS OF COWS AND BULLS.
Finca Cocó de Tegueste hosts this Sunday, day 4 May from 10:30 hours, the IV edition of the Team Driving Contest, an initiative of the Tegueste Livestock Breeders Association (Aguavite), unique in the Canary Islands.
The president of the association, Francisco Melian, explains that this contest evokes the recent past of an Island “in which all the transportation and survival of families depended on having cows, that allowed commercial exchange between towns and where the owner's expertise was essential for the carts to overcome roads deteriorated by the rains., at a time when there were no roads and, to the surprise of many young attendees, They remember their grandparents perfectly”.
Melián points out that the public will enjoy a unique exhibition in the Canary Islands, in which cowherd (Commonly “guayero”) and teams have to overcome a series of difficulties, how to overcome ditches, unstable ground or the animal responding to the simple call of its handler. “In short, It is an exhibition of expertise., in which the complicity between the guayero and his animal is appreciated”.
Last year the contest attracted more than 2.000 people and it is expected that attendance will increase in this edition, since the event “It has been consolidated and many people come who have no relationship with livestock farming., but who remember the work of their grandparents or their childhood relationship with the countryside, but also that they simply want to enjoy a different day”, explains the president of Aguavite.
Throughout the morning of Sunday, the participants will carry out the different tests that simulate the obstacles that the carts could encounter on the roads of yesteryear and that the teams must overcome.. The loose earth, the different ups and downs, Turning at a stopped wheel or reversing are some of the obstacles that the carts will have to overcome, in addition to the spectacular “voice call”.
To carry out all these tests, Each participant will have a maximum time of 15 minutes and, as in previous years, the teams of cows will carry a weight of 300 kilos and those of bulls, a burden of 600. Eight teams will compete and there will be two more in reserve.