Buzkashi: the best team sport ever invented

If you blinked you might have missed it. This phrase — “A large black goat, beheaded, disemboweled” — was on the front page of the New York Times. Alas, you probably missed it. But not to worry, that’s why you’ve got me, your eyes in the sky, your one man surveillance team, your intrepid GITMMW (Goats-In-The-Mainstream-Media-Watchdog).

Now, the NY Times has run a couple of other stories mentioning goats, but this goat story was different… it was fantastic. It was about (and I’m not making this up), an ancient team sport, passed down from the days of Genghis Kahn, in which three teams of men on horseback in a dusty field compete to:

1) scoop up the 70-lb carcass of a frozen, beheaded, disemboweled goat;
2) gallop around a pole 75 yards away with it;
3) race back to their goal with it still in their possession

For completing elements 1, 2, and 3, a team is awarded 1 point. Matches often go to 30 or 40 points.

Yes, I know, it’s both the best use for goats I’ve ever heard of, and also maybe the best team sport ever invented. It’s called Buzkashi (which means “goat pulling”), and acclaimed war journalist Dexter Filkins calls it “polo played with a dead animal.” It’s times like these in which the life of a war journalist really has its appeal.

But wait, there’s more. Among other things:

a) There are no real boundaries to the game
b) Spectators, when not getting trampled, yell things like “Go in there and grab that goat!” (except in Farsi, which probably sounds way more dramatic)
c) Competitors whip each others’ horses and each other
d) The referee carries a Kalashnikov, in case things get out of hand
I’m not sure what was implied by “out of hand,” as the rules seem pretty clear to me.

How does it all end? How else: the winning team roasts the bedraggled goat. A thing of beauty. And they say sportsmanship is all gone.