Twelve prized camels have been disqualified from a beauty contest in Saudi Arabia after their owners tried to tweak their good looks with Botox.<\/p>\n
Thousands of camels are paraded at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival to be judged on their shapely lips and humps.<\/p>\n
But judges stepped in when they discovered some owners had cheated in a bid to win the cash prizes.<\/p>\n
The festival, which also features camel racing and camel milk tasting, has combined prize money of $57m (\u00a340m).<\/p>\n
Ali Al Mazrouei, the son of a top Emirati breeder, said Botox was used for the lips, the nose and even the jaw, news website The National reported.<\/p>\n
“It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it’s like, ‘oh look at how big that head is. It has big lips, a big nose’,” he said.<\/p>\n
Judges are also looking for perfectly placed humps, muscular physiques and leathery mouths.<\/p>\n
In the lead up to the festival, Saudi media reported that a vet had been caught giving camels plastic surgery including Botox injections and reducing the size of their ears.<\/p>\n
Saudi authorities take the festival very seriously and chief judge Fawzan al-Madi said the camel was “a symbol of Saudi Arabia”.<\/p>\n
“We used to preserve it out of necessity, now we preserve it as a pastime,” he said.<\/p>\n
The camel beauty contest was first held in 2000 and last year was relocated from a remote desert area to a permanent venue north of the capital, Riyadh.<\/p>\n
Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"