Practice Jawa Timur
Maintained
A race of paired bulls drawing a wooden sledge with the driver standing on it, held on Madura after harvest, with a tiered competition running up to a provincial trophy.
Karapan sapi is a race of paired bulls drawing a kaleles, a wooden board on which the jockey stands, along a straight course of roughly a hundred to a hundred and eighty metres. It is held after harvest, and the animals are Madurese bulls kept specially for it — not working cattle.
Keeping racing bulls is a separate and costly occupation: special feed, massage, tonics, and months of training. The value of a winning bull far exceeds its value as livestock, and for its owner a win is a statement of standing parallel to the holding of a great feast in other societies recorded in this encyclopedia.
To drive the bulls, some jockeys use the rekeng — a nailed stick jabbed at the animals' hindquarters — together with stimulant preparations. The practice drew objections on animal welfare grounds, stated publicly over many years.
In 2012 the Governor of East Java prohibited the use of sharp implements in karapan sapi, and since then two forms have run: races following the prohibition, generally those held by government including the Presidential Cup, and races held outside them which do not always follow it. A practice split into official and unofficial forms is the usual consequence of regulating a customary act, and this encyclopedia records it as the current state and not as a settled matter.
Full entry 3 / 3
2 sections, 5 sources, one of them primary.
Full does not mean finished. It means this record clears the bar this encyclopedia sets before it will speak at length.
Fixed by an institution
Late September or October, after the regency qualifying rounds
The date is fixed by the organising committee and announced in advance; the qualifying rounds run for months beforehand across the four regencies.