The Wild West will ride into Palma´s Bullring tomorrow

Joan Collins PALMA is already breathing the atmosphere of the Wild West and looking forward to the rodeo coming to town. Palma Bullring has already started its metamorphosis to host the Majorca Western Festival which opens tomorrow and will continue until Sunday with a programme which will combine exhibitions of cowboy skills such as Reining and Cutting with a varied schedule of exhibitions and concerts which will provide entertainment throughout the whole weekend. After the recent World Equestrian Games which took place in Aquisgran, the Balearic capital is taking up the baton as a reference point for horse events and is preparing to enjoy an event which will give 200'000 dollars in prizes to the best specialists in a sport which aspires to become an Olympic sport at the Olympic Games in London in 2012. Reining is a Western discipline of horse control which is done at a gallop. This undoubtedly adds to the spectacular nature of a sport in which the stars are the American “quarter horses”. In addition to this, the competition will be enhanced by Cutting, a discipline which comes from the work done by the cowboys, in which the horse and rider have to separate a heifer from the herd in just two and a half minutes. However, another important part of the event in the Bullring will be exhibitions such as that of free control by the Frenchman Jean François Pignon and the Andalucian show by Miguel Barrionuevo, which will be followed by live music shows from the groups Rednex and Texas Lightning. The event, which has been organised by Event Consulting International and promoted by Heike and Michael Nixdorf, will start at 12pm tomorrow with workshops and commercial exhibitions related to the world of horses, both amateur and professional. The Majorca Reining Trophy competition will raise the curtain on the event, with the world's elite competing for the 200'000 dollars in prizes. The event will continue with a demonstration of Cutting by Ute Holm and of free control by Jean François Pignon, while the group Texas Lightning will provide live music. On Saturday the show will continue at 3pm with another demonstration by Ute Holm and the final of the Majorca Reining Trophy, which will precede the free control show by Jean François Pignon as well as a star musical performance by the group Rednex. On Sunday the show ends at around 5pm, but before that there will be time to see the powerful north American team in action against the rest of the participants, another demonstration of Cutting by Ute Holm and of free control by Jean François Pignon, which will be the climax to a weekend of spectacular and innovative events. The sale of tickets, both at the points of sale and over the internet, has been brisk, according to the organisers who say that at the moment a good atmosphere in the Balearic Bullring is more than assured as the Wild West fans booking for the Majorca Western Festival come from all points of Europe. Palma looks set to become one of the main reference points for this type of event and hopes to consolidate its hold on to it during the next few years, in spite of the fact that it will be facing stiff competition from other European cities to host of the event.