A short drive south of the megamalls and skyscrapers of downtown Dubai is all it takes to travel back in time. From the Burj Khalifa, the world’s largest building and an icon of the region’s excess and ambition, it takes just half an hour on Al Ain Road before it becomes clear why much of the United Arab Emirates is still referred to as the empty quarter. Out here, among the dunes and the dust, you’ll not find many tourists. Here, in a country where only 11% of the population are native to these arid lands, is one of the few places where the Emiratis still count among the majority. From above, the Dubai Camel Racing Club could be mistaken for an airport runway.

In fact, the Al Marmoom racetrack is the home of another mode of transport, one that has far outlived any man-made effort to replace it. In a part of the world that has undergone more transformation than anywhere else, these ships of the desert have provided one of Dubai’s few constants.

The Emiratis remain indebted to the camel. Many years before they struck black gold and its roads were paved for Bugattis, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, these beasts of burden were integral to the lives of the nomadic Bedouins.

Unflinching in blistering heat and blinding sandstorms, they’d carry their masters for miles across the desert in search of water. Loaded with food, materials, and plants, camel caravans would transport whole families in search of cooler oases in the baking summer months. But they weren’t simply dependable desert taxis. Their wool was used to make clothes, rugs, and tents, and their milk provided much-needed refreshment. Even in death, they were capable of sustaining life; camel meat remains popular in Emirati cuisine.

Without the toil of these single-humped dromedaries, humans would not have stood a chance here. Owning a camel was not simply one way of life, it was the only way. Such was their intrinsic worth to the Bedouins, that they even became a form of currency. The more camels one owned, the richer one was. As the ultimate Bedouin status symbol, they were even offered as a dowry at weddings.

But new wealth saw the Emiratis move from a lifestyle of subsisting, to one of consuming. Arabian camels are no longer the guarantor of survival they once were. But far from being discarded into the wild, they have been thrust into a new role within the region’s culture, where they are as revered as ever before.

Camel festivals, such as the annual Heritage Festival in Abu Dhabi, feature camel beauty contests and camel milking demos alongside other traditional activities like falconry and Yowla weapon dancing. Camel milk, which along with dates once formed the staple diet of the Bedouins, is now used in everything including ice creams, latte coffees, and even cheese.

Despite this, the modern Emirati doesn’t view the camel as a source of produce, a thing of beauty, nor a helping hand. These days, Emiratis see a camel the way an Alabaman looks at a stock car. Camel racing is a high-stakes pastime in the UAE, involving gruelling distances, coveted champions, and lucrative prizes. It is the NASCAR of the desert.

This is a relatively new phenomenon. Although camel racing can be traced back to the seventh century, it tended to play more of an impromptu role in Emirati culture. Races were held to mark social occasions like weddings and birthdays. But today, the sport boasts a formalised camel racing season and breeding winners is big business.

Oval tracks like Al Marmoom host races every Friday and Saturday throughout the cooler winter months during a season that runs from October to April. Race sessions take place twice a day, from 6.30am and 2.30pm, with races running continuously one after the other. And it’s completely free to attend. Although tourists and newcomers are welcome, given Dubai’s high expat community, their attendance in the grandstand remains comparatively sparse.

Those few who are able to escape the gravitational pull of downtown Dubai are rewarded with a rare show of traditional costumes, rituals, and celebrations, as the racetrack does an admirable job of maintaining Bedouin customs long intertwined with the sport.

The most-anticipated races of the year can surpass distances of 6 miles, a test of endurance as much as speed. Betting is banned, but with prizes worth up to 1m dirhams (around £210,000) and the royal family often in attendance, top-performing camels come from as far as Saudi Arabia to compete.

There are over 150,000 racing camels in the UAE, trained from the age of three and fed on a strict diet of oats, dates, bran, and cow’s milk. The very best can reach top speeds of 40mph. Some have even been genetically enhanced via lab-based genome sequencing at places like the Veterinary Research Centre in Abu Dhabi. The Camel Reproduction Centre in Dubai took the next big leap in the search for the elite purebred dromedary when Injaz, Arabic for “achievement”, became the world’s first cloned camel in 2009.

In 2013, Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed took advantage of these incredible scientific advancements by having his best camel cloned after it had died, in a scenario that sounds like Lawrence of Arabia as written by Philip K. Dick.

Champion camels can be bought and sold for seven figures, as the prestige of owning one affords an Emirati significant social standing. Post-race, winning camels have their faces and necks coated with a thick mixture of orange saffron and water so that their success is easily recognized.

But the reputation of camel racing hasn’t always been as positive. As the stakes increased, so did the Emiratis’ yearning to win at all costs. Lightweight and nimble jockeys became increasingly sought after, to the extent that the sport attracted international condemnation for its regular use of child jockeys, a practice that became uncomfortably linked to child trafficking from the poorest countries in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.

In a bid to tackle the issue, the UAE enlisted the help of UNICEF to become the first nation to impose a strict ban on underage jockeys in 2002. And, in an apt metaphor for the region’s ability to build the future on centuries-old foundations, Arabian camel racing found a bold and innovative solution: robots.

Pioneered by Gulf neighbours Qatar, Swiss robotics firm K-Team were commissioned to come up with a prototype that would push this burgeoning sport into the 21st century. The original Swiss-built models, named ‘Kamel’ and first tested in 2004, were the result of a year’s research by a team of engineers, biologists, and designers. The project cost $1m, a small price to pay for the significant humanitarian advantages it brought.

After initial testing found that the camels were far from comfortable with their new companions - some were so startled they ran in the opposite direction - efforts were made to replicate the conditions they had been previously used to. The robots are therefore designed in human form: donning racing silks and a helmet and sprayed with men’s perfume.

As part of an aluminium frame that hosts a processor and soundboard, the jockey’s left arm clings to the reins while the whip is wielded in its right. With in-built shock absorbers and a loudspeaker, the robots are controlled remotely by handlers following the race in one of dozens of speeding 4x4s chasing the camels on the parallel track. A remote display details the camel’s speed, heart rate, and the robot’s battery life.

The original prototypes weighed around 15kg and cost a hefty $10,000 apiece, prompting some traditionalists to mutter their doubts about the cost of this new direction. Yet, over two decades on, the robot jockeys now found astride the camels in the UAE are locally sourced and mostly home-made. They come in at a fraction of the original cost and weigh less than a bag of potatoes, at under 4kg.

The savings have come at the expense of some aesthetic quality, with today’s robot jockeys little more than a remote-controlled power drill connected to a long cotton-wrapped plastic whip and a walkie-talkie, all affixed to custom-made metal saddles.

The racing colours and sponge humanoid head are a Swiss design legacy intended to placate the camel. This ruse is yet to be exposed, despite some handlers fearing that their animals will one day realise they are being duped. Or maybe, just maybe, the camels know exactly what is going on, and are simply content with the lighter load. As are their owners. Since robot jockeys were introduced to the sport, race times have been cut by a quarter.

The first race to feature robots in the UAE was in July 2005, when 10 camels successfully carried their robot jockeys to the finish line at Abu Dhabi’s Al Wathba racetrack. In attendance that day was Sheikh Mansour, the Emirati royal who would go on to become the vice president of the UAE and owner of Premier League football team Manchester City. He proclaimed the robot race as a tremendous success that would prompt, “A new development in this indispensable sport in the United Arab Emirates”.

Today, at the 15 racetracks scattered across the country, weekly races see up to 60 camels line up behind the starting gate. They wait eagerly for it to lift and for their diminutive robot riders to propel them forward with cries of, “Jalla! Jalla!” (“Move! Move!”). The words are yelled into handsets by handlers who no longer have any reservations about the success of this robotic revolution, driving as close as they can get to their beloved camels amid a din of honking car horns.

When the beasts go out of view, hidden on the bend by a haze of kicked-up sand, handlers follow the action on big screens. In under fifteen minutes they’ll know if the sweet smell of saffron will be accompanying their journey home.

Any prize money can go towards some of the wares on offer at the stalls outside the racetracks: camel blankets, colourful silks, whips and, of course, robot jockeys; their position atop of the Arabian camel having become as second nature as its hump. ■