4K Rijal Albaroud National Festival

Activities of the Traditional Equestrian Festival organized by the Salam Association for Traditional Equestrianism in partnership with the Dcheira Jihadiya community, during the period from September 14 to 17.
It consists of a group of horse riders, wearing traditional clothes and charging along a straight path at the same speed so as to form a line, at the end of the ride (about a two hundred meters) all riders fire in the sky using old gunpowder guns.The difficulty of the performance is synchronization during the acceleration especially during firing so that one single shot is heard. The two words in Arabic that describe the main events in the Fantasia are ‘harrga’ meaning a movement and ‘barood’ meaning gun-powder. The Fantasia horse and is of type barb.
The performance is inspired from historical wartime attacks of Berber and desert knights. Today, Fantasia is considered as a cultural art and a form of martial art.
Each region in Morocco has one or several fantasia groups, called serba, totaling thousands of horse riders nationwide. Performances are usually during local seasonal, cultural or religious festivals, also called mousseum ('season' in Arabic).
A Fantasia is best characterized as an event with a team of competing horses and complemented by sounds of firing muskets; the latter is mostly done for tourists. Fantasia horses are well bred and well groomed stallions whose bodies are complete muscle. No ordinary work horse is allowed to participate in the Fantasia. Furthermore, there is a Berber saying that “only men and virgin women are allowed to ride these magnificent animals,” because non-virgins may cause the stallion to loose its power and speed.