Elephant racing Affairs in India, Nina Hagen, the German rock singer, and Brigitte Bardot, the French film actress. In India only two states hold the event. In Nepal, the race started as an International Elephant Race in December 2005. The Tharu people of Nepal, who are professional tamers of wild elephants, ride the race elephants. A particular feature of this race is that riders of racing elephants are chosen by lottery and not by choice and this makes the riding difficult for the jockeys who train on their favourite particular elephants. The winning elephant is awarded a trophy. The racing track is
Asian elephant zodiac of the Dai people in southern China. Asian elephant The Asian elephant ("Elephas maximus"), also called Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus "Elephas" and is distributed in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India and Nepal in the west to Borneo in the south. Three subspecies are recognised—"E. m. maximus" from Sri Lanka, "E. m. indicus" from mainland Asia and "E. m. sumatranus" from the island of Sumatra. The Asian elephant is the largest living land animal in Asia. Since 1986, the Asian elephant has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List,