International Camel Races

Festival Location: Virginia City, NV, USA

Festival State: Nevadan Festivals

Festival Type: Bizarre Sports Events

By: © Nelson Taylor 2009

History has it that in the late 1800s camels were used in the Nevada desert country to carry the salt used to reclaim silver and ore. But when the country drooped into a depression, most mining operations were forced to abandon their mines. What did they do with the surplus of their fur-humped friends? The bankrupt operators decided to let them run loose into the desert, where many camels roamed wildly until their American extinction in 1936. But in 1960, camels returned to the desert when Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and director John Huston were in Virginia City filming "The Misfits." The story goes that two newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Phoenix Sun, challenged each other to a camel race. Huston, riding for the Chronicle, won.

To celebrate this unique history, Virginia City now imports camels for their annual September race, where an average of 27 jockeys climb on top of these curious creatures every year and try to get them to run, which isn't always so easy.

Camels are known to have short attention spans but can also get pretty crazy, which means sometimes the camels leave their riders in the dust, face first in the dust. The race is "International" because Australians show up every odd year to try to take the crown away from us namby-pamby Americans. While you have to be a pro camel jockey (there was one?) to ride, all you need is $8 to watch. Other events include ostrich races and the rare water buffalo stampede.