Thai Buffalo is a beauty pageant star

CHONG BRI, Thailand (AP) – Five-year-old Todd is in a beauty contest for the first time, with a bright red interior with ears hitting his black fur.

TOD, the main stud of his owner, food vendor and farmer Thawatchai Daeng-Ngam, was one of the contestants at the annual Water Buffalo Racing Festival in Chonburi, a city about an hour’s drive from Bangkok.

Previously considered a humble draft animal, the water buffalo has become a precious show animal in Thailand. They will be celebrated at a festival held at the end of the November month to celebrate the beginning of the harvest season and to highlight animals that were once essential to Thai agriculture.

Recently, tractors replaced buffaloes, once highly valued their strength and ability to plow fields and transport heavy loads. If the animal is not competing in the show, it is for meat.

Buffalo was the main attraction of Chonburi’s fair, beginning with a parade featuring students performing traditional Thai dances. Some of the buffalo wore flower crowns when they pulled a traditional wooden carriage with owners and women in traditional Thai clothing, 6.5 feet tall.

The festival also featured a race with Buffalo, driven by a jockey running through a 100-meter (328-foot) track.

Pitun Rassamee has now competed against a 3-year-old buffalo and white fur. Albino had already won the local competition and hoped that Lookaew, meaning Thai marble, would be placed in the top five.

There was a good reason to hope. Another albinotai buffalo was sold for 18 million baht ($672,000) in 2024 after winning multiple pageants.

Changing the role of Thai buffalo

The transition from farm animals to valuable symbols was a gradual process with the mechanization of agriculture. The population of buffalo in Thailand has been decreasing for a while.

But the competition infuses new interest in animals, as well as new industries that enjoy government support. The Thai government has designated a Buffalo Conservation Day in Thailand starting in 2017, and local governments are currently providing breeding assistance to farmers.

Thawatchai, a food vendor who owns Tod, said growing buffalo for competition is nothing more than a hobby. He was only at the festival to let it roam freely on his family’s farm and see how Todd measured it with others.

On the larger farm, animals are soaked daily and given special diets of corn, soy, bran and vitamins, explained Kijchai Angkhanawin, who works as a caretaker of the precious buffalo.

He poured water on the buffalo he overseen at the festival, and was at least tall and bulkier than many other animals. They are judged by the size of the horn, the smoothness of the hoofs and overall physique, he said.

In Chonburi, the Buffalo-centric event is nothing new, said Papada Srizophon, assistant to the village chief near the livestock centre where farmers learn about the skills to raise animals.

“Every year it gets bigger and bigger,” Papada said. The contest describes it as an incentive for farmers to continue raising animals. “Without this activity, they don’t know what to do with their buffalo. They have no motivation to maintain their buffalo.”

“Buffalo raises people”

At Chonburi Beauty Pageant, the owner and caretaker waited for the buffalo in a shady pen. Fire trucks fed the animals with water, and festival visitors posed for a photo of the biggest animals and families with small children gathered in the stands.

The caretakers then surrounded the large animal in designated pens, where a judge in a rag tie and a cowboy hat inspected the contestants.

Many owners who enter Buffalo at competitions say they grew up with gentle animals and say they take good care of them even if they can no longer be used on the farm.

“Buffaloes can still work on-site, but they can’t compete with the machines,” says Thawatchai, whose family still holds 30 buffaloes, including TOD. “Buffalo are still important to me. It’s like what they said. ‘People raise buffaloes, and buffaloes raise people.’ It’s like family. ”