page_title: Water buffalo
section_title: Racing festivals
hierarchical_section_title: Water buffalo / In culture / Racing festivals
caption_attribution_description: English: Kambala, he-buffalo race at Vandar village, Udupi Dist., Karnataka, India, held during every winter across coastal Karnataka in about 50 villages.
context_page_description: The water buffalo or domestic water buffalo is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, North America, South America and some African countries. The wild water buffalo native to South and Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.
  Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The origins of the water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp-type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river-type may have originated in India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. After the domestication of the water buffalo in Southeast Asia, the swamp buffalo dispersed up to the Yangtze River valley between 3,000 and 7,000 years ago.
context_section_description: The Carabao Carroza Festival is being held annually every May in the town of Pavia, Iloilo, the Philippines.
  The Kambala races of Karnataka, India, take place between December and March. The races are conducted by having the water buffaloes (bulls) run in long parallel slushy ditches, where they are driven by men standing on wooden planks drawn by the water buffaloes. The objectives of the race are to finish first and to raise the water to the greatest height. It is also a rural sport. Kambala races are arranged with competition as well as without competition and as a part of thanksgiving (to God) in about 50 villages of coastal Karnataka.
  In the Chonburi Province of Thailand, and in Pakistan, there are annual water buffalo races.
  The Chon Buri water buffalo racing festival, Thailand In downtown Chonburi, 70 km (43 mi) south of Bangkok, at the annual water buffalo festival held in mid-October. About 300 water buffaloes race in groups of five or six, spurred on by bareback jockeys wielding wooden sticks, as hundreds of spectators cheer. The water buffalo has always played an important role in agriculture in Thailand. For the farmers of Chon Buri Province, near Bangkok, it is an important annual festival, beginning in mid-October. It is also a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. At dawn, farmers walk their water buffaloes through the surrounding rice fields, splashing them with water to keep them cool before leading them to the race field. This amazing festival started over 100 years ago, when two men arguing about whose water buffalo was the fastest ended up having a race between them. That is how it became a tradition and gradually a social event for farmers, who gathered from around the country in Chonburi to trade their goods. The festival also helps a great deal in preserving the numbers of water buffaloes, which have been dwindling at quite an alarming rate in other regions. Modern machinery is rapidly replacing water buffaloes in Thai agriculture. With most of the farm work mechanized, the water buffalo-racing tradition has continued. Racing buffalo are raised just to race; they do not work at all. The few farm buffalo which still do work are much bigger than the racers because of the strenuous work they perform. Farm water buffaloes are in the "Buffalo Beauty Pageant", a Miss Farmer beauty contest and a comedic water buffalo costume contest, etc.. This festival perfectly exemplifies a favored Thai attitude to life — "sanuk," meaning fun.
  The Babulang water buffalo racing festival in Sarawak, Malaysia, is the largest or grandest of the many rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the traditional Bisaya community of Limbang, Sarawak. Highlights are the Ratu Babulang competition and the water buffalo races, which can only be found in this town in Sarawak, Malaysia.
  At the Vihear Suor village water buffalo racing festival, Cambodia, each year, people visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor their deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead, but in Vihear Suor village, about 22 miles (35 km) northeast of Phnom Penh, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honour a pledge made hundreds of years ago. There was a time when many village cattle which provide rural Cambodians with muscle power to plow their fields and transport agricultural products died from an unknown disease. The villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a water buffalo race each year on the last day of the "P'chum Ben" festival, as it is known in Cambodia. The race draws hundreds of spectators, who come to see riders and their animals charge down the racing field, the racers bouncing up and down on the backs of their water buffaloes, whose horns were draped with colorful cloth.
  Buffalo racing in Kerala is similar to the Kambala races.
caption: A water buffalo race at Vandar village, Udupi district, India
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