Buccoo Goat and Crab Race Festival thrills visitors

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Hun­dreds of vis­i­tors flocked to the Buc­coo In­te­grat­ed Fa­cil­i­ty on Tues­day for the 98th edi­tion of the world-fa­mous Buc­coo Goat and Crab Race Fes­ti­val.

From as ear­ly as 11 am, the streets were lined with tourists with their cam­eras and um­brel­las out for the an­nu­al pa­rade herald­ing the start of the fes­tiv­i­ties.

It was a car­ni­val-like at­mos­phere on the road as chil­dren por­trayed their shim­mer­ing cos­tumes and chore­og­ra­phy un­der the blaz­ing sun.

Tra­di­tion­al car­ni­val char­ac­ters, such as the go­ril­la, al­so pro­vid­ed some en­ter­tain­ment, at­tempt­ing to scare women and chil­dren along the route.

The mu­sic shift­ed from so­ca to the fid­dle for the tra­di­tion­al Ole Time Wed­ding pro­ces­sion as per­form­ers in their Sun­day best danced a jig.

As per­form­ers and pa­trons poured in­to the Buc­coo fa­cil­i­ty, an em­ploy­ee gave the track a last-minute cut with a lawn mow­er ahead of the races.

As the an­tic­i­pa­tion built, the sweet sounds of the home­town Buc­cooneers steel­band de­light­ed the crowd by play­ing a num­ber of so­ca hits.

A cou­ple from Grena­da told Guardian Me­dia they came specif­i­cal­ly to see the races and were very ex­cit­ed.

How­ev­er, there was an im­por­tant task to com­plete first.

“Where the food sell­ing?” the man asked an of­fi­cial who di­rect­ed him to the ar­ray of tents.

As the bu­gle blew to sig­nal the start of the races, the ten­sion in the stands el­e­vat­ed with all eyes on the track.

Jock­eys walked proud­ly and pur­pose­ful­ly from the pad­dock to the gates with their goats firm­ly in hand.

One goat seemed to get shy as he re­fused to budge and had to be prompt­ed by his jock­ey to make the trek to the gates.

“Watch how he stub­born nah,” a woman from the crowd shout­ed.

As the red flight flashed sig­nalling the start of the race, the goats burst from the gates and thun­dered down the track with their fleet-foot­ed jock­eys in full sprint to keep pace.

Hap­py Feet, which was in win­ner’s row at the Carn­bee/Mt Pleas­ant Sports Day on Mon­day, again showed his pedi­gree with vic­to­ry in Buc­coo.

Eng­lish cou­ple Bob Pow­ell and Lucy Adams were smil­ing from ear to ear as they en­joyed the nov­el­ty races. They told Guardian Me­dia they have been to the is­land be­fore, but nev­er for the goat races.

“It is fan­tas­tic. It has a won­der­ful fes­ti­val feel to it,” Pow­ell said.

“We’ve nev­er seen any­thing like this be­fore. it’s just an amaz­ing vibe, great en­train­ment,” Adams chimed in.

Pow­ell said he en­joyed be­ing on va­ca­tion in the Caribbean and delv­ing in­to the lo­cal tra­di­tions.

“I think it is re­al­ly prop­er. It is an in­sight in­to T&T cul­ture. There is some­thing re­al­ly fun­da­men­tal about this. We are hav­ing so much fun just be­ing here, meet­ing peo­ple and hav­ing a good time.”

Adams said, “This has been go­ing for al­most a 100 years, just the his­tor­i­cal na­ture of this is amaz­ing and al­so the beach­es are beau­ti­ful, the food is won­der­ful. Every­thing is amaz­ing.”

UK friends Lucy and Beth said they came across goat rac­ing on Tik­Tok and de­cid­ed to book a flight to To­ba­go see it live.

“We came for the goats. It is bet­ter than we ex­pect­ed,” Lucy said.