An elephant polo match is not the easiest event to stage, but the sport is gaining in popularity across Asia, organisers say.

Mahouts, elephants and polo players gathered in northern Thailand this week for the King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament.

Senior mahouts paid homage to the elephants on Monday with a holy water blessing for 28 elephants taking part in the tournament by the Mekong River.

"When I started we only had two teams, and now we have twelve teams here," said James Manclark, co-founder of the World Elephant Polo Association.

"In Sri Lanka, we have ten teams, and in Nepal we have ten teams. So we are getting bigger and bigger all the time around the world."

Forty-four players participated in this year's event, including the Audemars Piguet and Chivas Life teams.

The Audemars Piguet team is famous in Thailand because its founding member Christopher Stafford brought Elephant Polo to the country in 2001.

The World Elephant Polo Tournament plays annually in Nepal, but the Thai tournament is comparatively small.

Due to the size of elephants, each team has only three players. They ride their elephants through a marked pitch measuring 100 by 60 metres, using a standard sized polo ball.

The rules are simple and similar to regular polo. A mahout helps steer the elephant for every player and no more than two elephants from a team can cover half a pitch at a time.

There is no gender division in the sport.

"We are an all-girls team, but the girls often play with the guys team. We are not physically strong but we hope to be more - maybe agile," said 3nellies Team founder, Claire McNicholl.

The proceeds from the event will be donated to organisations involved in elephant welfare in Thailand.

Reuters