Annual Water Buffalo Race A Splashy Event For Thai Town

He’s 1,870 pounds of horns, hair and hooves, a truculent brute whose favorite pastime is rolling in the mud. If he doesn’t seem lovable, you’re obviously not a fan of water buffalo racing.

Korn, the beast in question, on Saturday added another jewel to his crown with his fourth world-championship run: 120 meters in 11 seconds, a hair under 25 mph.

He was the best of 159 entrants at the world’s only water buffalo racing festival, held annually in this town 45 miles south of Bangkok. Nearly 5,000 people endured torrential rains to watch the four hours of competition.

“It feels great to win,” said Wa Paopouchong, the 41-year-old sugar cane farmer who owns Korn and five other buffaloes that ran in the meet. The top prize is $200.

The festival has been an organized event for ten years. It includes a parade with maidens drawn in oversized ox carts, Thai folk dancers, mock American Indians in blindingly bright garb, transvestites and a troupe of grandmothers in grass skirts.

Chonburi residents say the races, without the parade, have been going on for more than a century.

“The water buffalo is the backbone of the nation,” said Chaiyat Huangsri, 34, the event’s master of ceremonies.

That may have been true as recently as thirty years ago, but Chonburi has become a government-sponsored showcase for industrial estates and foreign investment. Farmland is disappearing. The traditional life of tilling the soil is being transformed into the numbing shifts of the assembly line.

“I bring my buffalo because I’m proud of being a Chonburi man, and this is what we do here,” said Yothin Attano, a 25-year-old rice farmer.

Yothin said, however, that he uses machinery to farm his 25 acres. His two buffaloes, Nual and Rung, are purely racing animals.

A nearly one-ton buffalo charging full speed is a fearsome sight. Spectators squealed and scattered as soon as a stubborn bison decided to dash for the stands.

The rough-riding rice farmers who race their buffalo have one common quality - courage. They wear no protective gear. They hang on to the bucking bison with just a rope while spurring them on with a bamboo riding crop.

As the contest begins many buffaloes weave in all directions, seemingly confused, before settling into a direct run.

Many, but not Korn. He bolted straight for the finish - showing the champion’s blood that makes him the envy of other racers.

“I’ve been offered 75,000 ($3,000) for him, but I’ll never sell him,” Wa said.