About Elephant Polo (and Frequently Asked Questions)
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The Game Itself
As in horse polo, elephant polo is played in periods called chukkers. In horse polo there are at least four, but in elephant polo there are only two of ten minutes each and a break in between to avoid tiring the elephants. Nine or seven elephants are on the field at any time - one for the umpire and three or four for each team, but at least twice that number are required for a tournament to give the elephants a rest between games.
Each elephant has two riders; one mahout, who steers the elephant, and one player, who concentrates on hitting the ball. There are mahouts' games, where the mahouts do everything, but for other players the mahouts are a necessity, as it takes over a year of full-time study to become a qualified mahout. The mahouts own their elephants, live with them, feed and care for them, and train them. It takes about a year to fully learn to guide elephants, and even then if they aren't your elephants, they probably won't listen (they aren't like horses. Short of animal abuse there is no way to make them listen if they don't want to, and as they are also very social animals they don't always listen to people they don't know. Elephant polo really is a function of each little trio playing as a unit; the polo player, the mahout and the elephant have to get along and get each other, or you won't be able to make it to the right place on time, or hit the ball when you arrive.
Like horse polo, elephant polo teams have handicaps, but unlike horse polo these are not assigned according to each player's record, but are rather distributed informally before the tournament based on whatever the players agree upon. Handicaps are basically a number of goals that each player has counted against them before the game. For example, an experienced team may start with a handicap of four, which means that their opponents start with four goals in their favor, while a beginning team might have a a goal of zero, which means that their opponents have no goals in their favor at the start of play. For obvious reasons, this is a very contentious issue, and no team captain is deserving of that title if they do not vociferously and tenaciously argue on their team's behalf when it comes time to assign handicaps. It gets a bit confusing, but the general idea is that handicaps are another measure meant to give players of all experience levels a chance to win if they play their best.
The rest of the game is like a simpler, more peaceful form of horse polo; players try put the ball in the opposite team’s goal without committing any fouls or knocking the ball out of bounds. Bumping and other contact between mounts, although common in horse polo, is forbidden between elephants for obvious reasons, but players can still try to ruin an opponent's shot by blocking their opponent’s mallet with their own or cutting them off.
Playing with elephants is also different than playing on horses in that the elephants are much slower (the field is smaller to accommodate for this) and their great size can lead to confusion when the ball rolls under their bodies and players can’t find it. They have also been known to step on balls, which means that the game must pause while the ball is dug out. Elephants sometimes even participate in the game – for this reason elephants picking up the ball with their trunks or lying in front of the goal is forbidden. A final issue is that of mallet length – mallets are made of the same materials as polo mallets, which means that the shaft is made of cane (a cousin of bamboo). In horse polo the mallet is pretty short and the cane just makes it flexible enough to really hit the ball. With elephants polo, the shaft is so long and therefore so flexible that it can curve and entirely miss the ball if players aren't careful. Elephants stepping on and breaking mallets is an additional hazard.
Tournament organizers provide the elephants, and teams typically show up a few days before the tournament to practice playing and get to know them and their mahouts. Elephant playing times are organized by schedule (to avoid overworking them) and abilities (to try and make each team as evenly matched as possible). Teams swap elephants during the match to ensure that no team has an advantage over the other due to their elephants. Teams also swap goals to ensure that no team has an advantage due to wind, terrain or elephant preferences for one side of the field to the other.
Elephant Welfare
When they are not playing polo, the elephants work by giving tourists rides and go on nature safaris. While it is true that domesticated elephants are sometimes very badly treated, elephants that play in tournaments are among the fortunate ones that live healthy lives. Their mahouts care for them and often stay with them for many years, and their elephants are well fed and taken care of.
Matches are stopped during the hottest time of the day and no elephant plays more than two matches in a day. Throughout the tournament the elephants are provided extra food and water and long rest periods. If for some reason an elephant is unable to play the other team will also play with one elephant less rather than force the smaller team’s elephants to work harder in order to keep up with the larger teams'.
Entry fees are very high for elephant polo tournaments, in part because much of the fees go toward elephant conservation and protection programs. Every country has it's own, so for further details please see our events page or scroll down to our elephant polo links. These are extremely worthy organizations doing difficult work to save one of the world's most intelligent (and endangered) animals.
Elephant polo also gives their mahouts an alternative source of income, as outside of tourism, there is very little legal work for the elephants to perform, and caring for an elephant is so expensive that their mahouts must have an income. Sadly, this often means that the elephants end up in horrible environments such as illegal logging camps, were they are often beaten and even force-fed amphetamines to make them keep working. Other elephants end up on the city streets for use in begging operations. Elephant polo increases the tourist opportunities for the elephants, directly through the games and indirectly through the publicity it garners, which in turn saves that many more from illegal work.
And Mystery Solved! - It turns out that elephants do run. Thanks to Jill Crissman for alerting us to this groundbreaking research.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Is this for real?
Yes. We really do play polo on elephants. It's so very, very fun.
Do you all belong to the Republican Party?
We are a completely apolitical team that happens to play a sport involving actual elephants. The elephant is a symbol of the Republican party here in the US, but it is also the symbol for the hindu Lord Ganesha, Buddha,Tufts University, and for good memory. As with US politics, DC Elephant Polo has no official opinion on Hinduism, Buddhism, Tufts, or even forgetfulness (although unofficially some of us are more in need of reminders than others).
What are elephants like?
Very intelligent. They know over 70 commands, including some relatively complex ones such as "higher, higher, to the left, OK now." They can use the power of levers (to break large pieces of sugar cane, they hold one end in their trunk and place the other under their foot, and use the force to break it), have complex conversations lasting for hours (mostly in frequencies too low for humans to hear, but they are almost always talking. One can feel them rumbling when sitting on their backs), engage in complex social behaviors and strategy when attacked (they make a circle with the young elephants inside and the adults all facing out, to leave no angle unprotected from the attacking predator). It just be anthropomorphizing, but this writer has also seen behavior that looked as if they have a (slap-stick-based) sense of humor.
They are mostly friendly, and will come over to you, especially if you have a snack (sugar cane and bananas are their favorites, although they also like apples, coconuts, pineapples and the so-called "elephant sandwich" of rice, rock salt and molasses wrapped in banana leaves). Their trunk is incredibly flexible, and strong. If they are curious about something they will use their trunk to feel it and pick it up to look at it closer, and sometimes they will taste the item as well, just in case. If they don't like you, there really isn't much you can do short of criminal animal abuse, beyond offering the aforementioned bananas and sugar cane and hope they change their minds. Elephants aren't lapdogs - they don't obey blindly, This is why mahouts live near their elephants, and provide all of their care, including daily baths, taking them out to graze, feeding, medical care, etcetera. The elephants know who cares for them, and listen accordingly. This writer has even seen a mahout giving his elephant a massage.It took both hands and a very vigorous pounding (the kind that, if applied to a person, might result in an assault and battery charge), but the elephant looked thrilled.
They are also very big, even the relatively little ones, which you notice when you first get on them. They rock as bit from side to side when moving, and although they can't gallop or canter like horses, they can get up to a respectable speed.
