As part of the mid-September festival at this shrine , there is a spectacular tournament of archery on horseback ( yabusame ) , in which contestants dressed in the costume of Kamakura-period huntsmen must hit a series of three small wooden targets as they come down a narrow course at full gallop .
The course the yabusame contestants but navigate is a wide open field , with no narrow points , to aid in the test of long-distance archery .