One of the most interesting things about OSM is the fact that it allows you to “map the reality”, map the ground-truth, not what the State-run maps tells you it’s there, but what is actually there.

Recently, on 10. January, an illegal horse racing, in a sort of clandestine racetrack was blocked by the military police in Pachino, Syracuse (Sicily, Italy). The blitz has, so far, allowed to identify more than 20 horse owners, jockeys and 3 veterinarians. The land placed in the open countryside, less than 2km from the sea, where the race was stopped, was a clandestine race-course, complete with boxes for the horses.

Just after discovering the news, I went hunting for that track on aerial images. We have been lucky enough to have been granted access to some 25cm resolution images, these images were made by the Regione Sicilia, after some more research I ended up discovering that the racetrack is located in Contrada Granelli, and not nearby the inhabited part of the Pachino town, so in the end, I was able to find it on the map, and tag it accordingly.

<way id=”49641876″>
<tag k=”clandestine” v=”yes”/>
<tag k=”leisure” v=”track”/>
<tag k=”name” v=”Granelli”/>
<tag k=”sport” v=”horse_racing”/>
</way>

Here is the result:

Surely this is not as important as what my friend Mikel is doing in Kibera, but still a declaration of indipendence from the canonical mapmakers.