When I read this, why am I thinking...oh, nevermind.

Carry on. :o

I would like to, but I have to scrub out the inside of my brain first.

I don't know a lot about elephants, but i feel sure that if they didn't want to participate, believe me they wouldn't. I don't believe a human could "force" an animal of this size to do ANYTHING he didn't want to. I've seen mules one tenth this size (if not smaller) who refused to budge, and what could the handler do? Nary a jack shit. I saw my grandfather beat one until he was exhausted and the mule looked at him like a fly buzzing in his face. Most animals cooperate with our activities as a courtesy to us. "you feed me & I'll fetch your damn frisbee" thing. There's something we all need to remember: We need the animals. They don't need us. All species of animals did and can survive without our intervention. Could we survive without theirs? That would be tough, at least for yours truly.
They should try to train the eles to wield a mallet also. That would be a lot more dangerous, which in turn would increase the fun pressure.
Out of all animals, I still find the human to be the most difficult to understand...................... :3eye:

The players have no relationship as they are only passengers. The mahouts "driving" have worked with the elephant for many years so that the elephant responds to toe pressure behind the ear much as a cutting horse responds to the riders leaning. No bullhooks or cattle prods like circus trainers. The elephants and most of the mahouts respond only to Nepali so communication between the player and his mahout can get confusing.

Entering the link through the "flash" choice, the galleries have 246 pictures......with not one caption. :(

Looking at UT's first picture, I'd say nobody is going to give the officials any crap considering the size of the tusker they're riding. :eek:

I Love it I Love it. :D I haven't actually seen this played but I've been in Chiang Mai just after a game. I'm sure the elephants like playing polo, the Mahouts make the game fun for them, an animal that big could really do what they pleased to a certain extent. I know that they love kicking huge balls around, I've seen them do it in Thailand, and they have so much fun.
P.S. Merry Christmas everyone. :grinnylov

I once read a book by an animal trainer who maintained that animals like the challenge of learning skills. Horses are proud to run and win races- in fact you couldn't drive them to the levels of exertion to win if they didn't. No reason elephants couldn't be happy to play or win at polo. It beats being Hannibal's cavalry or hauling logs. (Anyone see the end of Alexander?) And I don't see any cattle prods.

In the wild there may be plenty of survival challenges, but as we domesticate animals they can thrive under different challenges, like frisbee catching, performing well and winning races. Some domesticated animals couldn't survive without us, btw. They lost the skills and physical attributes necessary to survive in the wild.

It said in the link that in the beginning they used soccer balls but the elephants liked to play with them and stomp on them so they went to the polo balls. :)

LMAO, Els,

Hence the expression:
"As stubborn as a mule" :biggrin: