Thai farmers race buffalo in mud-filled spectacle

Farmers in Thailand pitted their prize buffaloes against each other in a mud-filled racing competition.

The contest marks the annual rice planting festival in Chonburi, east of the capital, Bangkok.

Pairs of the beasts are hitched to a wooden plough and sent careering across a flooded field with their human drivers running behind them getting caked in mud. The annual event draws large crowds.

Farmers say the race is a way to keep buffalo in Thai farming culture, with ploughing now mostly done by tractor.