Camel Entertainment
Camel Racing
Camel racing takes place on several continents, but the million-dollar Middle Eastern version is not to be missed. If your curious, check it out: ⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒⇒
But camel racing has a dark history.
The lighter the jockey, the faster the camel. With million-dollar purses on the line, wealthy Middle Eastern sheiks procured their child-jockeys from poor families in the Pakistan – often through the child-trafficking trade.
It wasn’t until 2002 that Pakistan ratified the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance, banning the trafficking of children to the UAE and other Arab countries.
It was technology that changed the game in the end. For the high-end races, jockeys were replaced with three kilogram robots, complete with speakers so that the owners could shout instructions and rotating whips in case that didn’t work.
But for the more local competitions, children are still more cost-effective. And so the smuggling goes on.
Camel Wrestling
You should probably check out this video:
It’s actually a lot like bull sumo. Which is a lot like regular sumo, only with more hair and horns and spit.
And now to answer all those questions that are bouncing around in your head:
They get the two male camels to fight by leading a female camel in heat around the ring. For this reason, camel wrestling is historically held during the mating season – November to March. Lately the government (in Turkey, at least) has been discouraging the use of females for motivation because it makes the males go absolutely nutty and spectators sometimes get hurt. Instead they basically starve the camels for three months before the tournament to make them irritable.