Elephant racing enough to accommodate nine participating elephants. Elephants are entered into the races from many villages. Two mahuts or jockeys ride on each elephant - one to steer it and another to goad it to race fast. A musical instrument made of horns of the elephants is blown first to assemble the elephants at the starting gate, then another sound is blown to signal the elephants to take the starting line and be set for the race, and with the third blow of the horn, the race is signaled. The elephants generally race at a speed of 25 mph with the
Elephant joke and reject the authority of traditional knowledge. He draws a parallel between this and the counterculture of the 1960s, stating that ""disestablishment" was the purpose of both," pointing to the sexual revolution and noting that "[p]erhaps it was no accident that many of the elephant jokes emphasized the intrusion of sex into the most innocuous areas." In their paper, "On elephantasy and elephanticide", Abrahams and Dundes consider elephant jokes to be convenient disguises for racism, and symbolised the nervousness of white people about the civil rights movement. Whilst blatantly racialist jokes became less acceptable, elephant jokes were a useful proxy.