In 1574, Nobunaga provided horses for tge Kamigamo Shrine Festival. Ota Gyuichi was in charge of the arrangements while Nobunaga watched the races from the gallery. The Kamigamo Shrine is located in Kyoto.
The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga (pp. 207-8)
"On the 5th of the Fifth Month, as part of the Kamo Festival, ritual horse races are held at the Kamo Shrine as an act of prayer for the realm. Fortunately, Nobunaga happened to be in Kyoto, so the shrine asked him to provide horses for the races. Nobunaga selected two horses that he had ridden in many a victorious battle--a gray and a bay horse. In addition, he picked eighteen chargers that belonged to his horse guards, making twenty in all, and divided them into ten pairs. Not only did Nobunaga provide the horses, he had all twenty of them outfitted splendidly. Each and every item of the horse gear--saddles, stirrups, bridles--was top quality. Indeed, Nobunaga made sure all the arrangements were stupendous. The grooms were dressed in gorgeous costumes unwitnessed even in ancient times. Ten priests in black attire and ten priests in red mounted in twenty horses and raced them against each other, pair by pair. That Nobunaga's gray and bay horse were superb steeds goes without saying, and both won their respective heats. This was a spectacle for the ages. Needless to say, noble and mean, old and young, all flocked to see it."
Tenka no tame!
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