AN OLD PASTIME RACES INTO THE FUTURE WITH EMIRATI HELP
▶ More than 500 camels vied for glory at the 12th Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Camel Race Festival in Jordan, writes Taylor Luck
As dawn broke over the horizon of Wadi Rum in Jordan, dozens of pickup trucks rumbled in from the desert, kicking up a cloud of sand.
Soon, barefoot boys led packs of tethered camels, three to four each, to the racing grounds from nearby sand dunes where they had spent the night.
Entire families and groups of friends from across southern Jordan, who had camped nearby for the better part of the week, descended on the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Camel Stadium.
This weekend was no normal race – it was the championships.
“This is the race we have all been training for,” said Abu Saqer Al Howaiti.
All the trappings of a modern-day sporting event were present as 500 camels faced off on Friday and Saturday – a permanent racetrack, live TV feed, colour commentators and cameramen to capture photo finishes.
But at the 12th running of the UAE-sponsored Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Camel Race Festival, which has transformed camel racing in this kingdom from a pastime to an organised year-round sport, it took only a few minutes to discover how little Jordanian camel racing has strayed from its Bedouin roots.
“This is not a sport – this is an inheritance from our ancestors,” said Mr Al Howaiti, 45, who had three camels in the race. He is a fifth-generation camel racer.
“As long as there have been people on this Earth, there have been Bedouin, and as long as there have been Bedouin there has been camel racing,” he said.
Only 25 years ago, camel racing here was a communal, spontaneous affair – races were held during Eid or as entertainment to mark a wedding.
Rather than sit in the shaded grandstand, most in Wadi Rum on Friday preferred to stand on the track, mere centimetres away from the approaching camels – just as their fathers and grandfathers would have done.
For a bird’s-eye view of the races, others sat on the roof of their vehicles, on water tankers and on cartons.
But the real action is in the pickup – think
Mad Max Lawrence of Arabia.
meets Just as in camel races a few decades ago, when the entire family would run alongside their camels, racers on Saturday loaded their pickup trucks with their brothers, cousins and sons to drive together around the track as they directed their automated camel jockeys.
Some even squeezed in an entire family of seven, with young men hanging out of the windows.
With one hand on the wheel, the other on his walkie-talkie and a remote to control his robot jockey balanced between his fingers, Abu Ahmed Howaiti roared around the track, swerving between the trucks of his fellow racers with one eye on his camel.
“Hat-hat-hat, yalla, yalla,” he said into the walkie talkie, which relayed the message to a speaker on the back of his camel.
Within minutes, he slammed on the brakes, as he and his fellow racers slowed to a halt.
“Where did he place? Tenth, I think, or maybe eighth?
“The important thing is that we placed at all.”
Mohammed Zawaydeh, 19, photographed the finish from the roof of his cousin’s pickup.
“Nobody here is in it for the money or the fame,” he said.
“Everyone is here for bragging rights and personal honour.”
Far from being a profession, camel racing in Jordan is a passion and a hobby – and an expensive one, at that.
Some of the top racers gathered on Saturday hire full-time trainers, usually Jordanians or Sudanese, who look after the camels every day and monitor their special diets – a position that pays 400 dinars (Dh2,071) a month – nearly double the country’s minimum wage.
Others try to train camels themselves, but it can be a struggle thanks to inflexible work hours.
Their brothers, nephews, cousins and sons are studying or, increasingly, migrating to the capital to work.
With the rising price of nutrient-rich animal feed, vitamins and various check-ups and blood tests, maintaining a racing camel costs between 3,000 and 4,000 dinars a year.
The only hope Jordanian camel racers have to break even or, some hope, to make a profit, is to place among the finalists in the weekend’s race and other races in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and as far away as Tunisia and Algeria.
Financially, most Jordanian camel racers are running in the red.
“Camel racing is expensive and your best bet is to break even,” said Ahmed Howaiti, as the ninth round on Friday rumbled past in the background.
“But more often than not, it is an annual loss. With the tough economy, more of us are becoming spectators rather than racers.”
He sold off his three racing camels two years ago.
Struggling Bedouin have an incentive to sell – top-finishing racing camels in Jordan can be sold for up to 30,000 dinars to Gulf buyers.
Having several first-place finishes can push the price up to 300,000 dinars.
As the stakes ran high this weekend, so too, at times, did tempers.
After the end of the fourth round on Friday, a racer stepped out of his truck and yelled at a rival who he claimed clipped his fender and sent him spinning off course – preventing him from steering his camel in the final seconds.
The argument escalated – shoes were thrown, harsh words were uttered.
The dispute turned into a full-on scrum as dozens of fellow racers rushed to separate the two men.
And then suddenly, calm was restored – a peaceful settlement that speaks to Jordanian racing’s Bedouin roots.
“Here in Jordan, tribes settle disputes and keep the peace,” said Abdullah Zawaydeh, a former racer and spectator.
“Whether it be on the streets or on the racetrack, we are the peacemakers. This is how we are in daily life and in sport.”
Abeed Zawaydeh, Al Dissah’s mayor, race organiser and member of the Jordanian Camel Racing Committee, said the UAE has been critical in preserving and developing camel racing in Jordan, funding the construction of the racetrack and sponsoring the annual race held under the patronage of President Sheikh Khalifa.
After long being overlooked, the Bedouin pastime is growing.
But even with all the modernisation, everyone agrees a first-place finish comes down to one thing.
“We may not have the local funding or government support racers in other countries have, but in Jordan we have a secret advantage that places us among the very best,” said the mayor as he ticked off the finalists from a list of scrap paper. “Heart.”
Nobody here is in it for the money or the fame. Everyone is here for bragging rights and personal honour MOHAMMED ZAWAYDEH Camel-racing enthusiast