It was a Saturday, so my tour guide offered me the pièce de resistance in West Sumatra experiences: the 'cow race'. They're bulls actually, and it's all about their ability to run fast and straight to the end of the course.
It's also about inter-village rivalries, the driver's ability to stay in control, and most of all it's about mud, noise and dangerous thrills and spills. Most drivers fall off and the bulls go careering into the crowd.
It's fabulous fun actually. Even when I fell into the mud when the tour company's corporate fold-up seat collapsed under me!
When I was in West Sumatra 30 years ago they were doing buffalo fighting. They didn't really fight - they had a head-to-head stand-off and then one ran away. They were very proud of this tradition, and it was supposedly a defining part of their culture and identity.
Where did buffalo fighting go? I've a feeling it was to do with the gambling that went with it. I was assured that there's no gambling with the cow-racing of today. It's supposedly about the honour of the village, plus it's a way of putting a value on your animals. The faster and straighter they run, the more you can get for them when you sell them for farm work. 
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