Scottish Team Wins Annual Elephant Polo Tournament

When most people think of polo, they picture a sleek horse with its nimble rider hunched low over the saddle, leaning down to deftly whack the polo ball around the field with a mallet 4 or 5 feet long. But try picturing a hulking pachyderm with its rider strapped to its back inside a harness, wielding a standard polo mallet fastened to the end of a 6 to 9 foot long bamboo stick. That’s the picture of Elephant Polo, and it’s been played for decades in many countries including India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

Elephant polo was first played in India at the beginning of the 20th century by members of the British aristocracy. For decades the sport was played differently in different countries, but in 1982 the World Elephant Polo Association was set up to standardize the rules of the game and stage annual games in Nepal. The association was founded by James Manclark, a Scottish landowner and former Olympic tobogganer, and A.V. Jim Edwards, owner of Tiger Tops Jungle Lodge in Nepal’s Royal Chitwan National Park. The two came up with the idea while drinking in a bar in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where they are both members of the Cresta Run. The games have always been played on a grass airfield just outside of the national park, but annual tournaments are also now held in Sri Lanka.

The rules of the game are similar to polo played on horseback, with a few alterations. The pitch is 3/4 the length of that used in horse polo, because of the slower speed of the elephants. Instead of sitting in saddles, players are secured to the elephants in rope harnesses with rope stirrups. If a player’s harness becomes loose enough to risk the player falling off, the game is halted until the player can be secured. Some of the differences are necessary because of the nature of elephants, such as the penalty that can be called if an elephant lies down in front of the goal line. The first modern elephant polo games were played with soccer balls, but after finding that elephants like to smash soccer balls, the standard polo ball was used instead. A game has two seven-minute halves, known as chukkas, with a 15-minute interval. Three elephants form a team, and the game is played on a field that is roughly one-third the size of a horse polo field.

The primary difference, however, is that the elephants carry two riders instead of one. Each beast is driven by a trainer, called a "mahout," while the player concentrates on the ball. The mahouts are not just riders; they have usually worked with their elephant for many years and each elephant responds to its mahout’s commands and signals quickly. The player is responsible for letting the mahout know where to go, how fast to go, which way to turn, when to stop, etc. The mahout communicates with the elephant by applying pressure to the back of the elephant’s ears with his feet, and by giving verbal commands. Most of the mahouts and all of the elephants understand only Nepali, so communication between players and mahouts can be difficult at times. For that reason, most professional players tend to learn at least some basics of the Nepali languages to help the game go more smoothly.

This year’s King’s Cup Elephant Polo tournament was held September 6th to 12th about 80 miles southwest of Bangkok, Thailand, in Hua Hin. Thailand joined the ranks of elephant polo associations in 2001 by hosting the inaugural King's Cup tournament to raise money for conservation of its 1,500 wild and 2,500 domesticated elephants. Over 1,500 spectators came to watch the fifth annual charity game to raise money for Thailand's National Elephant Institute in Lampang. The Chivas Regal team from Scotland, which won the 2004 tournament, clinched their second winning title after scoring a golden goal in overtime to beat Thailand’s Mullis Capital, 6-5. The annual tournament is an invitational tournament, and this year’s match included teams representing a wide variety of countries. Players from both teams were experienced elephant or horse polo players.