Modern Chariot racing - this should become olympic!

[Viggen]

...wouldnt that be a cool sport to watch?

[Aurelia]

The bikes disguised as horses just crack me up. 

[caesar novus]

I just watched a rerun of a Jordanian Travelogue (Stanley's on the go) which featured tourist chariot rides in an ancient hippodrome in Jaresh. They emphasized how dangerous it was even in it's present form, and I would guess from recent youtubes that tourists now just watch rather than ride. They emphasized that the movie chariots were much heavier and more sturdy than sporty historic chariots.

[caldrail]

The historical chariots were seriously flimsy and dangerous. Riders wrapped reins around their wrists to prevent losing hold of them, and a knife to cut themselves loose if need be. Boys on the turns at either end would rush toward a chariot and throw water onto the wheels as it careered by, to prevent the chariot from suffering adverse friction, and some of those lads may well have been inadvertantly killed too.

 

There were those who were good at racing chariots mind you. Gaius Appuleius Diocles is known to be the most successful driver with prize money totalling a sizeable 35,000,000 sestercii, or something like a modern equivalent of $15 billion.