Where Camels Race and Win Beauty Contests
In the camel beauty contest, contestants were divided into seven categories, including the "two-year-old virgin
female camels," "pregnant female camels about to give birth," and "five-year-old (and above) male camels.
A New York Times reporter watched one such race firsthand, in which the camel’s handler, driving alongside the animal, clucked softly into a walkie-talkie
that transmitted information to the mounted robot to make the camel run faster.
The Sultan Bin Zayed Heritage Festival, a two-week event about 60 miles outside Abu Dhabi, celebrates camels in all their unwieldy glory.
The Sultan Bin Zayed event showcases one of the few prominent camel races in the region
that still uses human jockeys, according to an Agence France-Presse report.
But as cosmopolitan city life increasingly overshadow traditional desert life, one festival aims to preserve tradition and introduce U.A.E.
They are affixed to the backs of the camels, and camel owners
and trainers with remote controls would race in their luxury cars alongside the robot riders on the track.
