(8 Mar 2018) LEADIN
They're not know for being light on their feet, but in Bangkok elephants are taking the place of ponies on the polo pitch.
The King's Cup Elephant Polo tournament has raised 1.5 million US Dollars for elephant welfare since it first began.
STORYLINE
One of the world's quirkiest charity events got underway in Bangkok when the elite sport of polo put aside its thoroughbred ponies and embraced instead 20 lumbering Thai elephants.
This is the 16th staging of the King's Cup Elephant Polo tournament. Organisers say in that time it's raised around 1.5 million US Dollars for the welfare of the huge beasts that are its stars.
The action was hot and especially heavy as competition began. During the next four days, 10 teams will trudge, plod and occasionally thunder round the riverside pitch, at a Thai five-star hotel, trying to score in the plus-size goals.
There are three elephants per team, and two people - a player and mahout, or handler - on each elephant. Matches are seven minutes per half, with a 15-minute half-time break, to reduce exposure to the tropical heat.
It was originally played with a football, but the elephants grew too fond of popping them, so these days the players take aim at a standard polo ball.
The concept is so barmy Lewis Carroll could have dreamt it up. In fact, it all began with a whimsical conversation, three decades ago.
"It started some 30 years ago," says organiser Tim Boda, "when basically a couple of friends who were at the St. Moritz winter polo, horse polo obviously, discussed whether this would be possible to play on elephants. And that's what they did. They tried first in Nepal, and then it became a sport."
A sport that poses unique challenges, from mammoth balls of dung that require regular removal to mallets that are about two meters (6.6 feet) long, and women are allowed to use both hands to wield them.
But according to this year's defending champions from India, the hardest part is just getting your ride to do what you want it to do.
"I think it's the communication with the mahout, and his communication with the elephant," says Uday Kalaan. "In polo, in normal horse polo, it's just you and the horse, here it's a three-way communication. That's the hardest."
On the polo field it's all hard competition, high spirits and good, clean fun. But in an office on the other side of the city, the sport is viewed in a less positive light.
Elephant polo is banned in the western Indian state of Rajasthan and animal welfare campaigners would like to see the same thing happen in Thailand. Using elephants to entertain humans, they say, is unacceptable.
"We consider this is a cruelty because we encourage people to understand more on the elephants. They are elephants, they are wild animals," says Somsak Soonthornnawaphat, of World Animal Protection.
The organisers say that these elephants are street elephants, kept in often poor conditions and frequently neglected. They say this tournament gives them a few days respite during which they are well fed and checked over by experts. Their mahouts get to see and learn what proper care looks like.
Also, they say, there are strict rules on how much weight they can carry. And the mahouts must swap their sharp bill-hooks for ones with blunt, taped-up ends.
Elephant specialist John Roberts says he understands the concerns but says a lot of thought goes into preparing the event.
"From two weeks out I am working to try to make sure that everything is in place to ensure that the welfare of the elephants when they are not playing is at least at a level above what they are getting at home," he says.
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