Anyone for Elephant Polo?
By Peter Fredson
August 20, 2006
On reading the daily news I become satiated with all the murder, casualty lists, knocking down people's houses with tanks, and trying to ignore the incompetence of the Bush Administration. I yearn for news items which stir my spirit of adventure or appeal to my sense of humor. Yesterday I found a delightful news items about a man who nearly drowned in a vat of chocolate. Today I snorted at the story about polo being played on elephants.
It seems that the King of Thailand each year offers a special Royal Cup to the best team of elephant poloists. A sport for the rich, yes, but it also helps pay for the care of the 12,000 elephants who are unemployed from their former days of hauling trees. The elephant herd once numbered over 100,000 and now it needs to be fed and cared for.
It costs about $12,000 to enter a 4-person team for the polo tournament. The teams will play in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Nepal in September. One polo player with a very long mallet mounts the elephant along with a young driver or mahout, who actually directs the animal by voice, baton, or by kicking its ears. As the elephants are slow and bulky they often step on the ball, burying it. However the elephants seem to enjoy the game and there is considerable trumpeting as they lumber across the field.
There are pooper-scoopers as the pachyderms emit waste during the game so players must be careful not to fall off their mounts. Another difficulty is that the mallets are thin and long, bending easily, so it is difficult to hit the ball.
All participants are housed in luxury resort accommodations, with liquor generously provided by a sponsor, Chivas Regal. Participants may be local but others come from Britain, Australia, Germany and the United States. There is even a woman's team of poloists, named The Screwless Tuskers.
The tournament has raised over US$140,000 for the National Elephant Institute which provides medical care, employment, welfare and mahout training.
For more information email: info@changthai.com.