Wacky Animal Sports You Had Never Heard Of

When it comes to sports involving animals, all that comes to mind is horse racing, cockfighting and polo. However, if you need a little more excitement in your life, we are here to show you the craziest ways animals are being used for sport around the world. Who knows, maybe after seeing this gallery, you’ll find yourself a new sports hero among…ANIMALS.

Rabbit Show Jumping

The first on our list – probably the cutest sport ever invented – rabbit show jumping. We believe horse show jumping inspired it, only here we have the specially-bred bunnies leaping over much smaller obstacles. This adorable sport originated in Sweden and spread to UK and America. So, you can always Google your local rabbit show jumping club and enjoy the show yourself.

Cricket spitting

Cricket spitting rules are simple: grab a dead cricket, put it your mouth and spit it as far as you possibly can. The contestant who managed to spit the cricket the farthest is a winner. This ‘yummy’ game was invented by the entomologist Tom Turpin at Purdue University for the annual Bug Bowl. Since then, the game is played at many other universities and events.

Snail Racing

Snail racing…ready, steady, slow. In this peculiar game, two or more land snails are racing on a circular track with a radius of 13-14 inches. In order to distinguish each competitor, they paint a racing number on the snail’s shell or attach small stickers to them. There are many snail-racing events held around the world, but the annual World Snail Racing Championships in the U.K. are the most popular.

Elephant Basketball

This is probably one of the main reasons we want to visit Thailand. Elephants are being trained to play basketball as part of an innovative regime to improve their health and vitality. The training starts with learning of basic ball control skills. Then the keepers teach the elephants how to stand on their hind legs, walk with the ball and finally shoot it through the hoop. It takes a lot of hard work to train an elephant but it’s totally worth it. The show is spectacular.

Dog surfing

This “fluffy” sport is gaining popularity as well. If you love dogs and surfing, and you can train your dog to stand upright on a surfing board while the waves hit you, this sport is for you. The game began its way in San Diego, and it has become quite a big deal in Australia as well.

Pig Olympics

This sport is probably the most eventful. The Pig Olympic ‘athletes’ compete in swimming, they run races, even split into teams to chase a soccer ball covered in fish oil. And we can assure you these piglets will never end up on the dinner table.  They just go on to produce a new generation of athletic sport pigs.