The Good Life in Aggtelek National Park Part XXXII: The VI. Annual Jósvafő International Hucul Horse Races and III. Annual International Farrier Competition

From August 22-24, 2014, the small, picturesque mountain village of Jósvafő hosted the VI. Annual Hucul Horse Festival. The festival took place in the heart of Aggtelek National Park. In 2014, the event was once again under the patronage of Minister of Agriculture Sándor Fazekas and co-organised with MAPE (Hungarian National Farrier's Association). The annual races feature one of the largest gatherings of the local hucul breed of horse. The event is unique in that the hucul horses take part not only in traditional show jumping and carriage driving competitions, but also a farrier contest. This year, more than 1000 visitors came to the Park's biggest event of the year. The farrier competition was particularly international, including participants from Hungary, England, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, France and South Africa. Both Hungarian and Slovak riders competed in the hucul horse races.

The event was officially opened in conjunction and cooperation with Jósvafő's village day celebration on Friday in the courtyard of the former rectory in Jósvafő, followed by Vaga Banda fire jugglers and the Miskolc Dixieland Band. The Old Mill Inn in Jósvafő provided an excellent buffet meal for VIPs and national park staff. The village days this year were dedicated to Péter Szalyár, founder of the village museum (which won Hungary's Best Museum Award in 2008), who passed away earlier this year. I was given the task to translate for ANP Director Balazs Veress and Jósvafő Mayor Béla Garan. The evening's entertainment featured the Miskolc Dixieland Band who we met about a month ago when they played at a house blessing party in Irota. Really nice folks who seem to love life and the music they play. Kata commented with a big grin that Imre the trumpet player and I have similar dancing styles. We danced to a few tunes, and then the Vaga Banda fire jugglers came on to the similar delight of the crowd.

Hucul Path Races for Open, Senior, and Child Categories took place on Saturday. The Combined Obstacle Course and Marathon Carriage Races, as well as the Hucul Path Sport Category Competition were held on Sunday. The farrier competitions were held in parallel with the horse races, including both events for both amateurs and professionals. These events included horse shoeing, forging horseshoes and the "Eagle Eye" contest (10 seconds to see a horse hoof and then fashion a well-fitting shoe for it), creative forging, and the exciting Group Wine Uncorking Contest (competitors must forge appropriate tools and open the bottle of Tokaj wine without breaking it). Evening entertainment on Saturday night was provided by the Mangalica Band and Ferenci Gyuri and the Rackajam.

I found myself most interested in the farrier competitions. Since I was responsible for getting them here, I was especially curious how the English blacksmiths would do. Andrew and George, 21 and 22 years old, just finished their training, but made a big impact on the event. If George had not been ill the first day and missed part of the competition he might have even won the event. He still managed to come in 8^th, while Andrew tied for 3^rd. While the laymen like me did not see the differences in their techniques and styles, the rest of the competitors were very interested and impressed. Everyone has their tricks to beautify their work, but I was most moved by Andrew literally wiping the sweat from his brow and rubbing it into the horse's newly shoed hoof to shine it up. A short video and photo gallery of the competition are also available.

The Koltay Hazaspar were there with a stand next to our Tourinform information booth selling their delicious dried mushrooms, jams, chutneys and fruit syrups. Krisztina was manning the booth while Gabor was taking the opportunity to process some black elderberries, stripping them off the stems. At a temporary loss for things to do I volunteered to help Gabor and had a lovely conversation with him about mushrooms, life in the countryside, and fruit tree maintenance. Interestingly, Gabor mentioned that even though many believe Judas Iscariot hung himself from a Cercis Siliquastrum (Judas Tree), others maintain it was from a black-berried elderflower tree.

The raffle this year featured lots of goodies from the Nomad Camping store, Koltay Hazaspar's Royal Treats, Fruktarium palinka from Trizs and others. However, the top prize was a lamb, won by a young boy waiting anxiously in front of the table for an hour to win something, anything with a handful of orange tickets.

Meanwhile in the garden, the tomatoes were too slow in ripening and many began hardening and turning dark. The unseasonal temperatures and deluges of rain this summer have finally taken their toll. We were forced to rip out the vines and burn them and the infected tomatoes. In the end, we managed to pickle 2 jars of green tomatoes but the rest were a loss. We were going to pick some corn this week but something, probably a wild boar, trampled and ate most of it on Sunday. We have used all our yellow onions already, and most of the red onions, except for the shallots. The cukes did not get enough sun. The salads and broccoli have already bolted. We do not know what this weather will mean for the cabbages, kohlrabi and the peppers that have not begun to flower yet. The Swiss chard keeps producing no matter how much we eat of the stuff, and the Swiss chard -mushroom cannelloni and stuffed Swiss chard leaves were successes. Whether something ever becomes of the celery, eggplant and fennel is also a mystery. With the continuing rains we decided to dig up all the potatoes, several kilos of mixed types, as a precautionary measure. It was a good thing we did, because we noticed the first potato beetles appearing. The French beans and the runner beans have done well though, particularly the runner beans that when the pods are opened reveal amazing purple, brown, white and other colourful and speckled beans.

Farrier Professional Category

1.    Norbert Pródán (HU) for the third year in a row!

2.    István Jére (HU)

3.    Jerome Champion (FR)/Andrew Prout (UK)

Farrier Amateur Category

1.    Ferenc Boros

2.    Arpad Blénesi

3.    Máté Albert

Hucul Path Children's Category

1.    Marosi Boglárka

2.    Újvári Vivien

3.    Horváth Dorina

Hucul Path Open Category
1. Dzsenifer Horváth
2. Zerind Veress
3. Kincső Vajda

Hucul Path Senior Category
1. József Szekeres
2. Zsuzsnna Gáti
3. Katalin Gáti

Hucul Path Young Horse Category
1. Alexandra Györe
2. Barbara Tóth
3. Dzsenifer Horváth

Hucul Path Beginner Rider Category
1. Virág Miklós
2. Szonja Gál

Hucul Path Sport Category
1. Bálint Ötvös
2. Virág Miklós
3. Nikolett Hartyán