The Crazy sport of Camel Racing:

Most people in the western world are very familiar with the sport of horse racing, but would look at you as if you had three heads if you mentioned camel racing. But the reality is that the popular sport of camel racing is the horse racing of the Middle East. The sport is most popular among countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Australia, and Mongolia.

The sport is very similar to horse racing but it does have a few differences for example camel racing usually doesn’t have any jumps, it is run on desert terrains and one of the biggest differences is that in camel racing the role of the jockey in recent times is done by a robot (a machine that has a rotating crop that hit the camel).    

One of the most interesting things about camel racing is that huge sums of money that are associated with these races. Through prize money, gambling and trading these race animals the entire business of camel racings is worth millions. To give you an idea of some of these vast figure here are a few real examples; race camel’s prices start at $50,000 and in 2010 a camel racing fan spent $6.5 million on three camels, and it has been report that winning camels can go for up to $30 million. Also $3 million is often awarded as prize money for victories.