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two friends, forty takes, one adventure across continents
March 26th by adrianna
Dear May,
Sorry about the delay in this week’s video — I was in Yemen and (1) narrowly avoided a bomb as well as (2) had tremendously slow internet for most of it.
As you know, I really like my camels (see: here and here). Some weeks back I showed you what the camel market in Al Ain was like; and in one of my last weeks in the United Arab Emirates, I made the trip out to Abu Dhabi’s Al Wathba camel race track, to watch one such race.
I was particularly taken by the robots that ride these camels. Robots, you say? For a long time these camels had little children as camel jockeys (still a highly sensitive topic, never discuss this, especially if you’re a journalist). Children were preferred because they were ‘the right size’. Accusations of human rights abuse, slavery and trafficking ensued, given how most of these children were from the Indian subcontinent, and incredibly young. These days the children camel jockeys are no longer — they’ve been replaced by robots, designed in Switzerland.
Their owners and handlers control these robot jockeys using remote controls, which means they drive alongside their camels during the race. And these things don’t come cheap — I believe one robot alone costs around US$5000 or more. Small change, though, for these camel owners; each racing camel easily costs as much as US$1 million, maybe even more. Most members of the royal family have entire stables of them, complete with skilled teams of the best camel handlers from across the region.
Winter is the best season for watching these races, because the weather’s much cooler then. From October until around March or April, Dubai and Abu Dhabi play host to camel races at their Meydan (formerly Nad Al Sheba) and Al Wathba racetracks, the championship races of a far more impressive scale than the one I just witnessed. When the championship comes around, like it did between 1 and 10 March this year, they kick off in Dubai then move over to Abu Dhabi a few days later, and teams and owners from all over the Gulf, especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia, come to have a shot at the prize money (and prestige).
While most people might find this camel obsession inexplicable, I for one found all my ‘camel weekends’ in the UAE to be my best yet in this part of the world.
Posted in abudhabi, camels, race, robots, uae, video.