Elephant goes wild during Sri Lankan Air Lines Elephant Polo tournament

GALLE, Sri Lanka [Feb. 16, 2007]

Eighteen-year-old Abey is unpredictable, has a temper and let his side down badly on Thursday when he lost focus on his polo game in southern Sri Lanka and hospitalized two of his teammates.

The four-ton elephant threw off an American player as well as the Sri Lankan rider directing Abey as the island's sixth annual elephant polo tournament got under way, rampaging off the field and crushing the Spanish team's minibus with his head.

"It's not quite what we were expecting," said hotelier Geoffrey Dobbs, who organized the Ceylon Elephant Polo Association Bowl to help boost upmarket tourism and elephant conservation, as trainers tried to calm the animal.

"I've been playing for seven years and it has never happened before," he added. "He got confused. Elephants are quite short-sighted, and if there are sudden movements in front of them, they can sometimes be unpredictable."

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Accident
• Terror
• Animal
• Crash
• Fatal
• Elephant
• Polo
• Wild
• Attacking
• Harrasing
• People
• Sri
• Lanka
• Air
• Lines
• Tournament
• Van
• Vehicle
• Damaged

[harindam]

@Chamath5 :)

[Chamath5]

fly srilankan