Mojácar closes Fiestas de San Agustín with centuries-old horseback ribbon race

Silk ribbons stitched with a young woman’s name, strung up for a galloping rider to spear with nothing more than a pencil, used to settle who was courting whom in Mojácar. Centuries on, the same horseback tradition just closed out the town’s biggest fiesta of the year, watched by hundreds along the way.

Hundreds turn out for the fiesta’s traditional finale 

Mojácar’s Fiestas de San Agustín ran from Wednesday August 26 to Sunday August 30, and the carrera de cintas (the traditional horseback ribbon race) brought them to a close, as it does every year. Riders competed on horseback while the Municipal Band played pasodobles for hundreds of spectators. The race took place at La Fuente, the fountain that has long served as the stage for some of Mojácar’s oldest traditions.

How a stitched ribbon used to decide who was courting whom

For centuries, the carrera de cintas was more than a display of horsemanship. Riders would gallop toward a wire strung between two posts and hung with small ribbons, trying to hook one using a pencil or another pointed object through a loop at the ribbon’s end. The format traces back to medieval jousting tournaments and since spread to towns across Spain and Latin America, each with its own local variation. In Mojácar, the ribbons carried an old dating tradition, where young women dressed in the town’s traditional mojaquera costume would embroider silk ribbons with their own names and hang them for riders to catch.

In the wider Spanish tradition, ribbons caught during the race are typically handed to a group of women, who then choose their preferred rider, turning the contest into a small act of matchmaking.

The town almost let the custom die out

By 2022, the tradition was starting to fade in Mojácar, partly because fewer families in the town still actually kept horses. The town hall responded by offering free horse-riding lessons to residents aged 16 and over, specifically to keep the race from disappearing. The move worked, and organisers reported strong take-up among younger residents that year, while the council added a children’s version of the race on bicycles to bring the tradition to a new generation without requiring a horse at all.

Five days of celebrating the town’s patron saint

The ribbon race capped a fiestas programme built around San Agustín, Mojácar’s patron saint, whose feast day falls on August 28. Wednesday’s opening gala featured pregonera Beatriz Gómez Bonillo alongside artist Miguel Campello, before Thursday’s subida del agua saw residents in traditional dress process through the town to La Fuente for a floral offering, led by the Municipal Band.

Friday brought the solemn procession in San Agustín’s honour, while the daytime Feria del Mediodía filled Plaza Nueva for the length of the fiestas, alongside nightly orchestras and DJ sets.

Whether the tradition still carries its courtship aspect is probably a secret best kept between riders and mojaqueras, but the race remains the moment every San Agustín fiesta builds towards and marks the end of a five-day fiesta extravaganza for Mojácar.