Autumn 2015 by Hurlingham Polo Magazine

HURLINGHAM P OL O M AG A Z I N E

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CONTENTS

Ponylines The latest news from the world of polo, including the Chief Executive’s column

Rain started play Flood, sweat and tears: William von Raab describes the birth of his polo feld

Quick on the draw Celebrating the late Sophie Sivrisarian’s irreverent portraits of polo’s fnest

Lifestyle This season’s notables, from handmade motorbikes to off-the-wall artwork

Pitch perfect How a huge investment in polo is shaping the game’s future in China

Héctor Martelli The polo commentator urges the sport’s governing bodies to unify their rules

Level playing feld Javier Tanoira on the steps he believes will restore speed and pace to the feld

The Coronel Suárez story We explore the fnal defning factor in the making of this legendary team

Sweet reunion Maya Tantuwaya relives the unexpected nostalgia of fnding her very frst mallet

Fame and the game How polo has always been centre stage for theatre producer Michael Butler

SHOW MEDIA Editorial Managing Director Peter Howarth 1-2 Ravey Street, London EC2A 4QP + 44 (0) 20 3222 0101 info@showmedialondon.com; showmedialondon.com HURLINGHAM MEDIA Sales +44 (0) 771 483 6102 hurlingham@hpa-polo.co.uk; hurlinghampolo.com Colour reproduction Born Group; borngroup.com Printing Gemini Press; gemini-press.co.uk

HURLINGHAM MAGAZINE Publisher Roderick Vere Nicoll Executive Editor Peter Howarth Editor Arabella Dickie Editor-At-Large Alex Webbe Art Director Julia Allen Chief Copy Editor Eirwen Oxley Green Deputy Chief Copy Editor Gill Wing Copy Editors Nicky Gyopari, Katie Wyartt Contributing Writer Tanya Jackson

Screen play The golden age of cinema was also a heyday for polo in flm, discovers Nigel à Brassard

Action Reports on the Cartier Queen’s Cup; the Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup; the Royal Salute Coronation Cup; the EFG Bicentennial Trophy; the USPA East Coast Open; the UK Kids’ Tour; the opening of a new club in Morocco; Polo in the Park; the Côte d’Azur Cup; the Sotogrande season; and Polo by the Sea

Fit for a king A classic match by royal appointment: the frst visit by a British reigning sovereign to the Hurlingham Club

Cover: The Prince of Wales awards the Coronation Cup to James Beim. Photographed by Tony Ramirez/Images of Polo

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. While every efort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, no responsibility can be accepted for any errors or omissions. All the information contained in this publication is correct at the time of going to press. The HURLINGHAM Polo Association magazine (ISSN 1750-0486) is published by Hurlingham Media. The magazine is designed and produced on behalf of Hurlingham Media by Show Media Ltd. It is published on behalf of the Hurlingham Polo Association by Hurlingham Media. The products and services advertised are not necessarily endorsed by or connected with the publisher or the Hurlingham Polo Association. The editorial opinions expressed in this publication are those of individual authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or the Hurlingham Polo Association. Hurlingham magazine welcomes feedback from readers: hurlinghammedia@hpa-polo.co.uk

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HURLINGHAM

FOREWORD RODERICK VERE NICOLL – PUBLISHER

We explore a couple of key themes in this issue. The frst is dominance: Facundo Pieres and Adolfo Cambiaso have each won six out of seven Queen’s and Gold Cups over the past four years, and this summer was no exception, with Pieres, playing for King Power, winning both. In Action, you can read how he dominated the English season and how Cambiaso swept the Silver and Gold Cups in Spain. In Features is the fnal part in our series on Coronel Suárez, who dominated polo in another era, winning the Argentine Open 10 years in a row. Their recipe for success was superb organisation and a winning culture. Another theme is the creative vein that runs through our sport. Michael Butler, who brought Hair to Broadway, discusses his role in running

Oak Brook Polo Club, and Nigel à Brassard explores why, in the golden age of cinema, so many flms featured polo. In this issue, we also address polo rules. In Profle, Héctor Martelli makes the case for international consistency, while in Talk, Javier Tanoria suggests how we might rekindle the magic and put the speed back into a match. Patrick Guerrand-Hermès, our One to Watch, has been a champion of polo at all levels, but his most recent project is a new club in Morocco, where I recently played a six-goal tournament with my son Elias – you can read about it in Action. Finally, William von Raab outlines the relaxed friendlies he plays on his farm in Virginia. Follow the action of the current Argentine season at hurlinghampolo.com.

CONTRIBUTORS

Antonia Campbell is a sophomore at Yale College. She attended Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, where she rode competitively in hunter and equitation divisions on the DC and Baltimore circuits before starting college and being introduced to polo. Her interests include yoga, reading and hitting ofside fore shots from a walk.

Michael Butler is a theatre producer best known for bringing the rock musical Hair to Broadway. He has also flled civic roles in politics, serving as special advisor to Senator John F Kennedy on Middle East matters. He umpires polo and has served as chairman of the US Equestrian Trials, governor of the USPA and chairman of Oak Brook Polo Club.

Maya Tantuwaya is a 15-year-old essayist whose passion for polo began at about the same time as her love for creative writing. Introduced to the sport as a toddler by her father, she learnt to ride and, aged nine, began playing at the San Diego Polo Club. She relishes the exhilaration of the game and enjoys the camaraderie between pony and rider.

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Javier Tanoira is a former 7-goal player from Argentina. Having been involved in professional polo for more than 20 years, he now focuses on family life, poetry-writing and flm-making, while striving to improve the quality of the sport. In 2009, his essay, A Refection on Argentine Polo, was instrumental in establishing new and improved rules.

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PONYLINES

LUCIA HALABICOVA -PGH LA PALMERAIE MOROCCO

ONE TO WATCH Patrick Guerrand-Hermès is something of a renaissance polo man and an unstinting ambassador for the sport. Formerly a director of Hermès, the luxury goods company, he developed the firm’s silk business. He is passionate about polo, which he started playing in 1953 as a young cavalry officer. A past president of the Federation of International Polo, Guerrand-Hermès was chiefly responsible for organising, arguably, the best World Polo Championship, in 2004 at the Domaine de Chantilly polo club, a facility he created in 1996. It now has nine fields and, during high season, hosts more than 300 players and 700 horses. His latest project is La Palmeraie Polo club in Morocco. Located close to Tangiers, the club has three world-class fields, which overlook the Atlantic, and is surrounded by sand dunes and hills. In August, it held its inaugural tournament with six teams of five different nationalities; 40 ponies were provided by the Guerrand-Hermès breed. The players lived in tents and were served lunch every day on the uninhabited beach and dinners in other stunning locations.

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PONYLINES POLO NEWS FROM ACROSS THE WORLD

The 2015 season is now over and the groundsmen are all busy putting the fields to bed for the winter. Looking back, congratulations are due to King Power Foxes for their victory in both the Queen’s and Gold Cups, with the Pieres brothers proving almost unstoppable. Next on the agenda was the Coronation Cup, in which England faced South America. The weather was certainly on England’s side and, for the first time in many years, the game was played on a pristine ground. Incoming sponsors Royal Salute even built a magnificent garden on the side of the ground, which their guests were able to enjoy to the full. Although spectator numbers were a far cry from the heyday of 2007/08, the day was, overall, a great success, with an enthusiastic crowd witnessing England reclaim the trophy. Congratulations are due to José Klabin, president of the Brazilian Polo Association, who put in a fine performance playing at No 1 for South America. At the end of the season, we were delighted to host a young team from Zimbabwe. Beaufort, Kirtlington Park, Longdole and Cirencester polo clubs all very kindly hosted a series of junior club-team matches, playing against Zimbabwe’s under-25s. The visitors won the first two games, then lost the final two. September has inevitably been a month of many meetings, with discussions taking place on umpiring, the rules and, of course, handicapping. Many opinions and ideas have been circulated via social media. Looking forward to the winter, the Metropolitan Polo Club in Tianjin, China, will not be running the 24-goal FIP Super Nations Cup this year and, at the time of writing, we are still waiting to hear whether the snow polo tournament will go ahead. However, England, having been knocked out in the preliminary stages, are unlikely to be invited. An invitational team will be playing in Pakistan once again this year, and young players will attend their customary training clinic in February with Buster Mackenzie in South Africa. It looks as if it could be a reasonably quiet winter, although it is hoped that England will take part in the Nations Cup in April 2016. I would like to wish those moving on to sunnier climes for the winter a successful ‘other’ season, and those left behind an enjoyable break – unless, of course, you are heading for the arena.

y USPA SELECTS NEW CEO In July, the USPA Board of Governors unanimously endorsed its Search and Selection Committee’s choice of Duncan Huyler as the organisation’s next CEO, succeeding Peter J Rizzo. ‘Duncan has a track record of strong leadership and organisational achievement and will take our association to the next level of excellence,’ said USPA chairman Chuck Weaver. Huyler began his career as an officer in the United States army and went on to hold various senior leadership positions across many industries, including advertising, technology and finance. He has spent the past 10 years as a hedge-fund CFO in New York. An avid amateur polo player and active volunteer, Huyler previously served on several USPA committees, and has chaired the Interscholastic and Intercollegiate Committee for the past five years. ‘As the United States Polo Association celebrates its 125th anniversary, I am honoured to become part of the incredible tradition and history of this great sport,’ said Huyler (pictured below in Aiken, SC).

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UNITED STATES POLO ASSOCIATION®/ELIZABETH HEDLEY

CHIEF EXECUTIVE

y HARRIMAN CUP The 31st Annual Harriman Cup, featuring alumni teams from Yale University and the University of Virginia, took place on 12 September 2015 at Bethpage State Park, with 1,000 revellers in attendance. Both teams played a heated game, but the final score was 13–7 to UVa. Chip Steigler’s horse, Pastura, was named BPP, and CB Scherer on the UVa team was named MVP. With this year’s win, the Virginia team has evened up the 31-year series, with the teams winning 15 games each, and tying one match, in 1992. The funds raised will benefit the undergraduate polo programmes at both universities. American businessman Neil Hirsch, who is co-founder of the Bridgehampton Polo Club and owner of the Black Watch polo team, has been honoured with this year’s Harriman Cup Award. Founded in 1984, the Harriman Cup commemorates the life of W Averell Harriman, a 1913 Yale graduate and polo player, who was a former governor of New York and US secretary of commerce under President Truman.

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PONYLINES

HOOKED ON POLO Lila Pearson is vice-president of Cowdray Park Polo Club and very much a fixture on the polo field. She plays 6, 8 and 12-goal, and recently won the Holden White Cup with her son George. I’ve ridden all my life and competed at one time or another in nearly all equestrian disciplines. I started riding polo ponies when I met my husband Charles, and played my first game in 1994. My first tournament was at Park House with Roderick Vere Nicoll and we won! The following year was meant to be my first proper season, playing 8-goal; however, the small matter of being pregnant with George put paid to that, so I really started playing in 1996. It’s the horses that make polo so special to me. Finding, breeding and playing them are my passion. I like to think I’m doing my bit to keep alive the legacy my late father-in-law left behind, and also take pleasure in the fact that George is so keen. Defining the perfect game is difficult. If I were watching, it would obviously have to be a really top-notch high-goal match, but if I were playing, it’d be any game in which I feel I’ve done my bit. That said, I do love playing flat-out chukkas with seven other competent, fun players on a good field. I feel that some may have lost sight of what polo is all about. There are too many people trying to make a living from polo and not enough people to fund them. It creates all kinds of problems within the sport and muddies the waters in so many areas. One of my most unforgettable experiences was becoming the first female player to reach the semis of the Gold Cup. Other memorable occasions include scoring the winning goal in extra time when substituting for Rick Stowe for Geebung; playing in the final of the Royal Windsor; and our triumph in the Ashton Cup. More recently, I was immensely proud to win the Holden White with George.

{ MAJOR GEORGE DAVID ROLLINSON, 1924–2015 Major Rollinson (pictured third from left at Cowdray Park) passed away peacefully on 23 May, aged 90. David was born on 25 August 1924 in Colne, Lancashire. He studied architecture at Manchester University, but his tenure was cut short in 1941, when he was called up for duty in World War II. He was initially based at the army training camp in High Lee, where he met his future polo mentor, the late Micky Moseley. David served with the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders until 1947, rapidly climbing the ranks to Captain, and during this time he engaged in battles including the liberation of the infamous Bergen-Belsen. Following a distinguished career in the army, David returned to civilian life and married his first wife, Joan. They moved to Dunsop Bridge in Lancashire to be near the family business, where David resumed work, and had two daughters, Gail and Amanda. By 1952, and based in Manchester, David rekindled his acquaintance with Moseley at Cheshire Polo Club, and it was not long before David was a playing member with a 3-goal handicap. One of the club’s biggest achievements came in 1968, when David joined Sebastian de Ferranti’s Kerfield House team to beat the Windsor Park team of Lord Patrick Beresford, the Marquis of Waterford, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh and Paul Withers to win the Cowdray Park Challenge Cup. It was while he was playing in Cirencester Park that David met his second wife, Sheryl; and their son, James, has continued the polo tradition. David played competitively at the Cheshire Polo Club well into his seventies, and, with Sheryl, managed the club. It was not unusual to see David umpiring 12 chukkas on the trot in his early eighties. David was a legendary character and will be missed by everyone who knew him. Howard Taylor y BOOK LAUNCH A year in the making, Sotogrande Polo Ponies by Camilla Sykes takes the reader on a photographic journey of a year in the life of the polo ponies that visit or live in Sotogrande. Starting with some images of tender moments between mare and foal, the book covers visits from the dentist and blacksmith right through to the adrenaline-fuelled high-goal games with the likes of Cambiaso, Pelón and Facundo and Gonzalito Pieres. Sykes left her job as a financial analyst in the Chilean branch of ING Barings to pursue a career in fine art and photography. She returned to university in London and obtained a degree in fine art from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. She discovered polo while living in Sotogrande with her two daughters and was inspired by the beauty of the game. Having found her ‘muse’ in the polo world, she often travels with her cameras to the big polo tournaments, aiming to capture all the excitement and energy in her photographs. Her interesting journey to the edge of the polo

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field is as colourful as her images, which stand out as unique works of art. With every photo individually edited and crafted, this book would make an original gift for any polo lover. The book is available in paperback (£14.99) or large hardback (£95) from camillasykes.com

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PONYLINES

CHUKKAS

Back in 1922, the National Federation of Polo merged with the River Plate Association, forming the Argentine Polo Association (AAP), which had 254 registered players at the time. On 14 September this year, the AAP celebrated its 93rd anniversary. In the June issue of Hurlingham, we featured the United States Polo Association (USPA), which was founded 125 years ago, in 1890. However, The Hurlingham Polo Association was founded in 1875, making it 140 years old, and the oldest of the big three polo associations!

y FRENCH OPEN The French Open finals on 21 September were full of promise following the high standard of play during the men and women’s semi–finals, and, indeed, all the previous rounds. The pressure of a final can lead to a tightly played and tedious game; however, this wasn’t the case for this year’s tournament. The blazing sunshine drew vast crowds, flooding both sides of the main field at Chantilly Polo Club. The women’s final saw defending champions Tom Tailor go face to face with team Lowell. The score of the previous round that had pitted these two teams against each other (7–3 to Lowell) suggested the final would simply be a formality for the team gathered around the best female player in the world, Caroline Anier. But Tom Tailor, under the leadership of Britain’s Lucy Taylor, valiantly led the score until the last chukka, 7–6. In the final moments, however, Lowell fought back, with a fantastic goal from Emma Boers securing the team’s victory, 8–7. The men’s final, between Maquard Media and Tom Tailor, was equally thrilling, with a score gap that was never greater than one goal: 5–5 at half time and 9–9 at the end of the regulation time. So, the winners of the 15th French Open were to be determined by a play-off, and it was Argentine Martin Aguerre Jr who gave the final blow to Tom Tailor with a huge golazo from about 50 metres. The spectacular shot gave Maquard Media its first French Open win.

In August, Crown Resorts purchased half of the Packer family home, Ellerston in Australia, for AUS$60 million (£28m). James Packer, the largest shareholder, stood down as chairman of Crown Resorts, saying he wanted to ‘spend more time in the US [where his children live] and focus on the casino group’s global expansion’. Kerry Packer bought Ellerston 43 years ago in 1972. Included in the sale are 1,400 hectares, an 18-hole golf course (designed by British Open champion Greg Norman), a shooting range, go-cart track, swimming pools, cinema, horse-riding facilities and luxury accommodation. The 50 per cent sale of the Ellerston property does not include the agricultural business or the polo pitches, which are close to where Kerry Packer was buried in 2005.

In late September, Robert de Balkany passed away, aged 84. He began playing polo in 1958 with his St Mesme team in France, where he played for most of his career, apart from a short spell at Palm Beach in the 1980s. Fellow Frenchman Lionel Macaire was his principal professional teammate, and they played in the fnal of the Coupe d’Or in Deauville four times, winning three of them. Today, the St Mesme team, which plays in France and Sotogrande, consists of Robert’s son-in-law Birger Strom, his grandson Robert and his granddaughter’s husband, Clemente Zavaleta.

x POLO COMMUNIT Y CELEBRATES LIFE OF WILL TANK ARD In late July 2015, the polo community mourned the tragic loss of Will Tankard, 31, of Aiken, South Carolina. Will died along with his loyal companion Chewy and three of his horses in a road-traffic accident in Ohio while travelling from Lexington, Kentucky, to Darlington, Pennsylvania. In a statement released a few days after the accident, the USPA commented: ‘Will was not only a face of polo in this country, but he was also its heart and soul. He was a true horseman and gentleman who set a wonderful example to our youth and was an inspiration to adults as well. Beyond his accomplishments on the field, Will was a genuine, passionate and caring human being who found his way into the heart of our polo family. Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family.’ Among Will’s numerous achievements and successes, he was a founding member of Team USPA, 2002 and 2003 National Interscholastic Champion, National Intercollegiate Champion in 2006, winner of the 2014 Bryan Morrison trophy and a key member of the 2015 team that competed in the finals of the FIP World Championship. A celebration of his life took place in September in Aiken, South Carolina.

The Dominican Republic will host a series of 22-goal tournaments from January to March 2016. Play will take place at Los Establos, Casa de Campo and La Lechuza, with six to eight teams and four tournaments: Bronze Cup, Silver Cup, Gold Cup, and the Caribbean Open. Polo has been played at Casa de Campo for more than 50 years, and it is home to three polo felds, fve golf courses and a marina. Los Establos, which is in the resort of Cap Cana, will have three Battros felds and 300 high-end stables. Victor Vargas, who is moving his organisation from Palm Beach, will be playing with 10-goalers Juan Martin Nero and Pelon Stirling. Former Argentine Open winners Milo Fernández Araujo and Benjamin Araya will be involved in running the four tournaments.

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PONYLINES

LOVE OF MY LIFE PONY’S NAME: DOLFINA DIVINA SEX: MARE ORIGIN: ARGENTINA

SADDLE UP WITH... NAME: HUGO LEWIS NATIONALITY: BRITISH POLO HANDICAP: 2-GOAL How did you start playing polo? My family have always been involved with the game. My dad played in the army and all my cousins play now. I started playing at my local pony club when I was eight.

Wandering along the pony lines of the JaegerLeCoultre Gold Cup final on Sunday 19 July, it was evident it was going to be a difficult task to select the Best Playing Pony of this year’s tournament. In the end, from among the 83 stunning ponies in the lines and on the pitch, it was Pablo MacDonough’s Dolfina Divina who took the title. I spoke to MacDonough after the match to find out what it is that makes Dolfina Divina stand out as such a special pony. The eight-year-old bay mare was bred by Adolfo Cambiaso and is the daughter of Open Chimento and Fashion. In the Gold Cup, she was played by MacDonough in the first and fifth chukkas of all the major games: the quarters, semis and final. She has great acceleration, is very handy, stands her ground against being bumped and has a good heart, so ticks all the

boxes for the perfect polo pony. She is clearly a favourite for MacDonough, who says: ‘She’s very quick in the short plays and always willing to run with control. You can check her in a few metres and she can change rhythm and doesn’t get tired; you can play her for five or six minutes in a row.’ All characteristics that are fitting of the BPP of the 2015 Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup. Victoria Elsbury-Legg

Who do you respect most in polo? My brother [Rupert Lewis], because he shows a lot of passion for the sport. I also have huge respect for Eduardo Heguy, who has coached me in the past. He has won nearly everything there is to win and has taught me how to be tough on the field.

ELIZABETH HEDLEY; TONY RAMIREZ/IMAGESOFPOLO.COM

How many tournaments have you played in this year? So far this year I have played the Queen’s Cup and the Gold Cup in England – and won both with King Power Foxes. I believe our success was down to the attitude of the whole organisation. Training both on and off the field is taken seriously and the quantity and quality of horses is on another level. What are you doing this winter? I am hoping to go back to Argentina to train with Eduardo Heguy – probably with other English players such as Matt Perry – and to watch the Triple Crown. I also hope to play at King Power’s club near Bangkok. What was your most memorable game? I will never forget the Gold Cup final against UAE with the two Pieres brothers. It was undoubtedly the highlight of my career thus far – I had always wanted to play in the final but never thought it would happen. Having ticked the box of playing, I then managed to fulfil another dream of actually scoring in the final.

{ RMPA OPEN FINAL On Saturday 22 August, Thai Polo came from behind to defeat La Familia 6–5½ in the RMPA Open final, played at the Royal Selangor Polo Club, Malaysia. The game had the 300 spectators on the edge of their seats throughout. Gines Bargallo and Horacio Etcheverry got La Familia off to a bright start, creating the better plays in the opening chukkas. Tun Yasir Moiz came back into the La Familia side, replacing Cipita, but it was Dato’ Zekri Ibrahim who was the dangerman up front, scoring two good goals in the match. La Familia led 4½–2 at half time, but Thai Polo refused to give in and fought back strongly in the third chukka. The team took a ½-goal lead with a chukka to play and stretched it with another in the final chukka. La Familia came back with a goal of their own by Dato’ Zekri with 30 seconds to play, but time ran out for the local club. Thai Polo patron Dato’ Harald Link had another solid game, man-marking his opposite number well. While Carlos Pando had another typically super game, it was Agustin Canale who was awarded MVP. It was a courageous performance as Canale had been sick all week with a virus and had missed both mid-week games. Paton, a 12-year-old Argentine gelding owned by Thai Polo, won the BPP prize. In the earlier round-robin for third place, La Sarita beat Royal Pahang and Head Hunters. With the win, Thai Polo moved further ahead in the RMPA International League standings, bringing their three-tournament total to 42 points. It is an unassailable lead in the league. Peter Abisheganaden

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TALK

QUICK ON THE DRAW Carolina Beresford celebrates the life and work of the late Sophie Sivrisarian, an artist who made her mark on the polo world with her irreverent portraits

Sophie Sivrisarian was the daughter of Armenian immigrants who settled in Hurlingham, Argentina, in 1938, when she was five years old. She began drawing high-goal polo players at Buenos Aires’ illustrious Hurlingham Club when she was just 13. Her distinctive style caught the attention of many, though not always favourably. ‘One of the first pictures Sophie drew was of Charly Menditeguy,’ says Pepe Santamarina, president of polo at the Hurlingham Club. ‘He was a 10-goal superstar and a complete character; he took one look at the drawing and ripped it in half. He didn’t like it at all.’ Nor did her father, for that matter. Sarkis Sivrisarian did not fancy his only daughter as an artist. Undeterred, and with no formal artistic training, Sivrisarian continued to depict polo greats exactly as she saw them. ‘She thought her drawings were realistic; she did not set out to draw caricatures,’ says Santamarina. ‘If she saw a distinctive feature, she became very motivated to draw that person. She didn’t draw with the intention of being funny or to mock the sitter; her art portrays her vision of reality.’ It wasn’t until Sivrisarian turned 26 that her work started to be taken seriously and she began to receive commissions. One of her most celebrated drawings depicts the 1966 British (Commonwealth) squad travelling to Argentina to compete in the prestigious Nation’s Cup. Coach Raja Hanut Singh, mounted on a highly polished chestnut mare, is followed by the Marquis of Waterford and his brother Lord Patrick Beresford, with Patrick Kemple, Sinclair Hill, Ronnie Ferguson and Paul Withers bringing up the rear on a dwarfed dappled grey, alongside Hanut’s companion, Beryl Hill. Guardian angel Lord Cowdray dispenses coins from above. ‘It’s my favourite drawing of hers,’ shares Santamarina. ‘The image tells a funny narrative. Sophie recalled how Lord Cowdray had to rush back to England halfway through the tournament to gather funds for the club. In those days, it was an honour for Sophie to draw you. Many great English players of the 1960s were drawn by her and it’s not uncommon to see her caricatures framed in their country houses.’

Clockwise, from left Sivrisarian in 2003; ‘Three Wise Men’; her depictions of the British (Commonwealth) and USA squads, 1966

Many great players were drawn by her, their caricatures framed in their country houses

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Sivrisarian’s passion for horses also attracted her to the Criollo art of Argentina. She identified strongly with Argentine culture and, although born in London, the artist often stated that she didn’t have a drop of English in her. ‘She always dressed like a gaucho!’ laughs Santamarina. ‘She knew more about local culture than most Argentines do. She became great friends with Dicky and Frances Santamarina, my great-uncle and great-aunt, and spent much time at their farm, La Fortuna. It was there she began to draw gauchos. I know that her favourite drawing was one of three gauchos as the Three Wise Men.’ On Sivrisarian’s death earlier this year, her beloved Hurlingham Club inherited all her remaining drawings. A permanent exhibition of her works will be on display at the club, just as they are at the Polo Hall of Fame in Florida, in the Bagatelle club in Paris, and in Rajasthan, at the family seat of the late Rao Raja Hanut Singh. Each one is an eternal tribute to a fearless artist with a particular point of view.

PEPE SANTAMARINA

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PITCH PERFECT The Metropolitan Intervarsity Polo 2015 tournament gave students a taste of Tianjin’s phenomenal investment in the future of polo, says Antonia Campbell

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The horses weren’t the only stars at the Metropolitan Polo club: some wonderful people have become a part of this enterprise, such as Derek Reid, director of polo preparations, John Fisher, acting deputy general manager of polo, umpire Ben Turner, head groom Alejandro Norse and the many knowledgeable Argentine grooms. We were also able to take part in another of the club’s key ventures, the Junior Equestrian & Polo Programme (JEPP), which teaches Chinese youth basic riding, horse care, barn management and, of course, polo. The grooms were fantastic teachers, demonstrating how enthusiasm can bring together people of different backgrounds and what can be accomplished with practice and determination. Over the week, our JEPP sessions helped students master basic swings and grow confident on horseback.

After a week in Tianjin, it was clear to me just how important this tournament is

Opposite An Oxford University player on the ball This page Antonia Campbell (second from right) with the Yale team; Yale vs. Stanford

After a week in Tianjin, it was clear to me just how important this tournament, and the club itself, is. We Yale students and the JEPP kids were at the centre of Metropolitan Polo Club’s mission: as newcomers to the hotel and to the sport, we demonstrated the investment in Tianjin as a future nexus of polo. I returned to the USA with a new respect for the physical and mental demands of the sport, as well as a deeper knowledge of its significance in the world. The website of the Tianjin Metropolitan Polo Club claims its hotel, like polo, pursues perfection in performance as well as aesthetics. I agree, and I believe Mr Pan’s creation will leave a legacy, not only of beautiful apartments and karaoke machines but of real lives – mine included – spent in the dogged pursuit of excellence. Many thanks to Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club, Pan Sutong, Harvey Lee and the amazing Coco Wong and Derek Reid, as well as umpires Ben Turner and John Fisher, the grooms, the world-class horses, the hotel staff and, of course, all our incredible coaches. We hope to see you all again next year!

METROPOLITAN POLO CLUB

This summer, I was invited to join the Yale Polo team at the Metropolitan Intervarsity Polo 2015 – The London Challenge in Tianjin. I arrived in the city in July, feeling jet-lagged and with high expectations; I wasn’t disappointed. The Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club Hotel, the brainchild of Hong Kong businessman and billionaire Pan Sutong, pays homage to history’s great displays of power, wealth and culture. But at the heart of this ambitious project is polo, and our team’s dreamlike stay at the hotel was soon upstaged by the privilege of playing at the club. On our first day, we found our way to the east field for our trial ride and the grooms led out a string of top-notch ponies: beautiful, pristine and in fabulous shape. I soon realised international outdoor polo is a very, very different game from US arena polo. These horses were ready to play: they accelerated out of nowhere, turned on a dime and, when I asked my first horse to stop, it happened so quickly that I lurched out of my stirrups and very nearly on to the pitch. After an hour of jumping on and off ponies, I was exhausted and mildly terrified, but also dying to get back on every horse I tried. That first afternoon – cantering down a perfectly trimmed field, heading towards the hazy high-rises of Tianjin – is a moment I will never forget. However, I was completely unprepared for the intensity of the game. The next day, my first chukka whizzed by in a six-minute gasp of bodies, helmets and horses that raced off, stopped, turned, pushed, pulled and hit about 20 times faster than I thought was possible. I came off the pitch shaking and exhausted, with new respect for my teammates and opponents. Although the Yale team finished the week with disappointing scores, I was hugely proud that we fought for every play and improved as a unit (and of myself, for hitting the ball a total of twice).

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LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

The All-Pro Polo League (APPL) was formed with the aim of organising worldwide tournaments involving only professional players. In the past 10 years, the quality of play in this area of the sport has deteriorated. We believe this is largely due to players of different levels – that is, patrons and professionals – being on the field together in competitive tournaments. To our mind, the only way to reverse this trend is by trying out new rules and to stage play between teams that are formed of participants of the same level. This does not mean we are against patrons, or that we want to take them off the field. But after more than 30 years of patron-led polo being the state of play, we really do need a complete review of the rule book. The APPL believes the rules of polo, as in every sport, were written under the assumption that the players on the field have more or less the same level of play. In polo, though, the game has changed. The modern version of the sport is a result of the pros trying to use the patrons and low-goal players on their team to block and ride off

opponents so they can maintain possession of the ball. The first consequence of this style of play is that the speed of the action has decreased substantially, and so polo is no longer an exciting, attractive spectacle for fans around the world. APPL tournaments are primarily designed for international players up to 25 years of age who are, or who want to become, professional players. The first tournament will take place in Buenos Aires in November 2015, with the rest of the schedule to be announced early in 2016. There will be, on average, four to six tournaments a year, and the locations we are considering are Buenos Aires, Palm Beach, Sotogrande, Dubai, UK and São Paulo. A whole package of new rules – which have gained the support of the AAP, HPA, USPA and FIP – is going to be tested during these contests in order to speed up the game, make it more dynamic and give it greater rhythm. The most important of these will be that players won’t be allowed to change horses in the middle of the chukka, and umpires will strongly penalise

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blocking and interferences in every possible instance, as well as any player in possession of the ball who delays and slows down the action. The aim of the tournaments is to round up the world’s best young talent, those we consider to have the greatest chance of becoming high-goal players. In Argentina, we have already formed a committee to choose the top 30 and invite them to be part of this project. There will still be one place available per team for a young foreign player with similar skills whose own polo association is interested in helping them achieve a better level of play. This is crucial in encouraging international competition at the highest level. Indeed, having one country dominating the game on the world stage – as Argentina does nowadays – is one of the biggest barriers to the growth of polo globally. But if we start mixing the best Argentine players with players of the same age and skill from across the globe, then high-goal players from different countries will start appearing in a few years. And that can only be beneficial for the sport as a whole.

LUCIA HALABICOVA -PGH LA PALMERAIE MOROCCO

In a bid to recover the speed and magic of the game, Javier Tanoira, son of Gonzalo, has formed a new league set to revolutionise competitive tournaments

BEYOND EXPECTATION Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide to open its frst ever polo resort.

The St. Regis Dubai will be the centerpiece of this six million square feet equestrian centre in the heart of DubaiLand. A 136-room hotel, inspired by Andalusian architecture, will be surrounded by a state-of-the-art polo academy, show jumping and dressage arenas and a riding school with 500 stables. In addition there will be 162 luxury bungalows, 2 4 of which will be St. Regis branded. The St. Regis Dubai Al Habtoor Polo Resort & Club - sharing a passion for the ‘Sport of Kings’.

a legacy of luxury. now at over 30 of the world’s finest hotels & resorts. alhabtoorpoloresortandclub.com

©2010–2013 Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Preferred Guest, SPG, St. Regis and their logos are the trademarks of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., or its afliates.

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SWEET REUNION In the hands of an experienced rider, the mallet becomes an acrobat, says 15-year-old Maya Tantuwaya, who has never forgotten her frst Around January, our growling Ford pickup crunches through the dirt road beyond field five of the San Diego Polo Club and pulls to a stop in front of our eight-horse trailer, lonely from six months’ abandonment. Dad and I forget our differences to jump out of the truck, and he fumbles with the key to the built-in tack room. I explain my hollow ambitions to keep an accurate inventory of our jungle of English saddles, intricate bridles, and the bouquet of polo mallets fanning out of a red water bucket like dry spaghetti. I make the same vow every year but never follow through. Ignoring me, Dad turns around to engage a passing horse groom in polite conversation, using his clumsy Spanish, as he reins in his cluster of six horses. He pretends to have known the groom all his life, even though I’m the one who spent an entire summer out riding with him in the mornings. Raymundo and I have become close friends, despite the language barrier. Organising the mix-up of mallets, my hand catches the woven cream hand loop of one of them. Up and out comes my very first mallet, separated from the tangle of chapped leather and spray bottles quarter-filled with the syrupy remains of what used to be fly spray. The threadbare rubber wrap on the grip still bears the unsavoury whiff of sweaty palm, but there is bliss in curling my hand around the mallet’s end. Fencers and tennis players think of their foils and rackets as an extended arm, while the polo player’s weapon of choice harmonises the momentum of man and horse into a scything stroke that sends the ball sailing tens of metres over the cropped-grass pitch. The wedged mallet head is clumsy, and its fine cracks and scratches are masked by duct tape, but its bruises bless it with the beauty of something from a (civilised) battle. The bony grip provides no leverage – that all comes from the player’s arm and hips in the swing. The cane itself, a 52in shaft of manau palm wood with a honeyed glint, stands dormant and straight. In the hand of an experienced horseman, it’s an acrobat – flipping to a 90-degree angle when hooked by another mallet and flicking with the fluidity of a dancer into backbends. Balanced upon the slender stalk is the mallet head – worn and covered in vein-like cracks and grass smudges. It still grasps the cane with snug stability. I covered the smooth wood with chequered tape and two skinny bands, but even

Maya Tantuwaya and her father, Lokesh, photographed in 2012

the tape is frayed at the edges. The head, cigar-shaped with a diagonal wedge cut out of one end, was the pride and joy of my 11-year-old self. In stamped print, the initials MT, decorated with forest-green paint on the ends, declared my presence on the playing field. To swing it was to boast a coat of arms with the prowess of a cavalier. How I’d catapult across the fields, adrenaline clenching my stomach while I inhaled the essence of leather and dewy grass. Or at least that’s what I would fantasise. The graceful lance is stiff with sleep, stained with memory of play some years before, when I could hardly manage to hit the uneven, plastic ball at a benign canter. Bouncing on the back of my short-legged bay, I’d shrug my heavy helmet into place, only to feel the front visor fall over my brow once more. The mallet would twirl, wild with the combination of the force of the horse and the

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languid noodle of my arm controlling it. Grazing the tender blades of grass or clunking my pony’s forearm with the mallet, I’d focus really hard until a solid clunk reverberated off the sweet spot, propelling the dented hunk of a ball forward. Well-balanced and dependable, the polished mallet soon became an acquaintance of mine. But the progression of time dulls all glory into a jejune bronze plaque inscribed with memory. Time to rebel against the accumulating dust and leave behind the nostalgia. Dad, meanwhile, is still stammering in Spanish, and Raymundo seems slightly amused by it. I twist the loop of the initialled mallet around my thumb and adjust my right hand. Even after years of inaction, it is usable – so long as I replace the tacky and frayed duct tape on the head. Maya plays polo at the San Diego and Eldorado Polo Clubs in California

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RAIN STARTS PLAY When a fash food fattened William von Raab’s land in Virginia, creating the perfect conditions for a polo pitch, he knew exactly what to do

Born from a millennial flood almost 20 years ago, polo is now an established summer treat at my home farm of Oldford in Virginia. Having followed the natural course of an American boy who had started playing polo at Yale College, then at the University of Virginia School of Law, I was determined to continue my connection with the sport by buying a polo-friendly farm in Virginia. The essential ingredient in this acquisition was a 15-acre patch of land alongside a river. The only problem with the land was the plantation of 6ft corn and 30ft trees that covered it. The gods solved this on 27 June 1995, when they dumped 24 inches of rain into the valley in less than seven hours. The Rapidan lived up to its name – it was first named the Anne, after Queen Anne, before becoming the Rapid Anne, then the Rapidan – it burst its banks and flooded. I was left with a razed patch of land, and a dozen piles of debris the size of small houses. After weeks of clearance and months of drying out, we had the basic ingredient of a polo ground – 15 acres of flat land. The perennial rye, Kentucky blue and Bermuda grass soon took hold, until the first crack of small white balls could be heard from my house atop the steep hill. Over the next year or so, I began developing the still-rough ground into a polo facility.

A few interested souls made occasional visits, keen to try out the latest polo fields in the Charlottesville area. Our popularity grew, and soon there was competition for players to fill out the teams playing matches on Oldford’s pitches. Polo at Oldford took a slightly different tack as time went on. About 15 years ago, Juan Pablo Butler arrived, from Cañuelas in Buenos Aires, to play the summer season. He soon became a permanent resident, and was to transform the atmosphere of the club entirely. The sport here went from the occasional pick-up game to an informal schedule of Tuesday-evening and Saturday-morning games among friends. Most of these fixtures were followed by an asado prepared by none other than Juan himself, as our master asado chef. The quality of the polo improved over time, and we were soon fielding teams of three to five goals apiece. Logistics, as in all polo clubs, are

After months of drying out, we had the basic ingredient of a polo ground

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Above William von Raab (fourth from right) at his 15-acre Oldford polo club in Virginia

always a hassle. The night before, or morning of, the game always presents a crisis over who and how many players are going to compete. But we have somehow always – bar one occasion – managed to field eight enthusiastic players. Often, the No 1 positions are occupied by polo tyros, who are treated with great care by the old boys. Several sons of players (including my son, Nicholas) have been brought up to become first-rate players by starting at No 1 at Oldford. The most notable characteristic of the sport in the country world of Oldford is the good nature one finds, even at the most critical points of a closely fought game. And even when there’s a disagreement and no umpire for that game (as sometimes happens), all will be turned into laughter after a few Corona beers and chorizo at the after-game asado. I hesitate to characterise our polo as gentlemanly – that’s for someone else to say. I can say, however, that it is civilised and great fun – a condition we hope to continue for many years to come. You could definitely call it real country polo, played at its grass roots.

Photo by Paula Matos Gil

COSTA CAREYES. TIERRA DE REYES

?! Careyes. Land for Kings. (absolutely)

We are

MAD

about fulfilling dreams. Living in a blue castle on a cliff, in a sensual villa or in an indigenous beach bungalow. Golfing, surfing or playing polo on the best fields in Mexico. Getting pampered with relaxing massages or yoga. Sipping the Mexico’s finest tequila and mezcal. Enjoying the richness of Mexican culture mixed with Mediterranean savoir vivre. All this and more along a 10 km protected coastline enveloped by an exuberant tropical forest.

Costa Careyes is Capri, Portofno & San Gimignano (Italy) all rolled into one — and only a 2.5 hour fight from Los Angeles! A private and protected resort estate on Mexico’s pacifc coast between Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo. Careyes attracts residents and visitors from every corner of the globe. Its 10 km of pristine coastline enveloped in 15,000 hectares of tropical dry forest combine perfectly with a hallmark architectural style, monumental jungle sculptures, an art center, sea turtle sanctuary, endless fun-flled activities and four restaurants serving world-class culinary delights. Accommodation options include everything from 6-bedroom castles perched on clifs to elegant villas to seaside bungalows just of the private and pristine “Playa Rosa” beach. Costa Careyes is yours for the taking throughout the year! The Costa Careyes Polo Club, 3 km south of main resort, has two Bermuda Polo felds which operate from November to April. The club ofers stabling for more than 60 horses for rent, clinics, private classes as well as opportunities for jungle and beach horseback riding. During polo season the Club hosts a number of events, including the Thanksgiving Cup, the Christmas and New Year’s Cup, the Women’s Cup (January), a fabulous Chinese New Year celebration (February), the Arte Careyes Film Festival (April) and the famous 2-week Agua Alta Polo Cups (March 18 to April 3). Polo levels range from beginners and juniors to a 4-12 goal handicap. Our tournaments feature 16-18 goal games. Polo can be organized a la carte regardless of whether you come on your own or with a team, and pros and rental horses are always available. The club is under the capable care of our polo manager Susan Stovall.

M é x i c o P h . + 5 2 ( 31 5 ) 3 5 1 032 0 - w w w. c a r e y e s . c o m info@careyes.com.mx facebook.com/costacareyes | instagram.com/costacareyes www.careyesfoundation.org In alliance with

Since 1974

Since 1989

Since 1990

‎A surprising destination to combine a great holiday on the sea and great polo. The horses are handy and the bermuda felds ‎are considered the best in Mexico.

LIFESTYLE LUXURY OFFERINGS FROM THE WORLD’S BEST BRANDS y HIT THE RIGHT NOTES Few purchases are more dependent on an individual’s penchant than a fragrance. As more of us become disillusioned with mainstream brands, opportunities are opening up for independent perfumers, free from the red tape of branding, politics and peer rivalry that restricts the larger houses. Perfumer 4160 Tuesdays is at the forefront of the ‘slow scent’ movement, creating fragrances that are joyful, witty and inventive. Noteworthy are Doe In The Snow, in which founder Sarah McCartney ‘stirred woods, fruits and flowers with an icicle’, and What I Did On My Holidays, which was described by James Craven, buyer for Les Senteurs, as ‘an irresistible pick-me-up, even on the weariest, wettest and wickedest of days’. The house also offers bespoke blending sessions to guide those with hard-to-please noses towards designing their own ideal fragrance. 4160tuesdays.com

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y LAND MARQUE The wonderfully named Fur Feather & Fin country clothing, accessories and gift company launches its new website this month – a boon for those looking to purchase a present for a fan of the great outdoors. Its leatherware line, in beautiful burnished brown hide, is exclusive to the brand and includes this sturdy yet stylish men’s travel bag (right), elegant women’s tote, practical unisex backpack and capacious purse, all of which can be embossed with the recipient’s initials. Other items can be personalised, too, including a handsome silver-plated champagne stopper, pewter hip flask and glass tankard – all ideal gifts for those who are particular about their tipple. furfeatherandfin.com

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LIFESTYLE

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y OFF THE WALL Wallpaper emporium Feathr.com was launched by three former advertising executives late last year. For its debut line, the Helsinki-based digital start-up invited a community of 120 creatives from across the world to design wall coverings that double up as art. As a result of that successful launch, Feathr.com caught the attention of eminent publications such as It’s Nice That and Dezeen. Even style bible Elle Decor has proclaimed its wares ‘our new favourite wallpaper’. The company adheres to a ‘more art and less decoration’ philosophy, and works with artists, graphic designers, typographers and even tattooists. Each roll is printed on demand, using environmentally friendly inks, and delivered to your door, with royalties going straight to the artist. Feathr.com’s innovative and affordable wares offer an ingenious way to promote contemporary art and fill your home with original works. feathr.com

y HIGH ART Situated in picturesque St Christoph, in the Tyrol region of Austria, is the five-star Arlberg Hospiz Hotel, the foundation stone of which was laid in 1386. Earlier this month, the historic establishment launched a lavish new arts and concert hall (below), the Arlberg1800 Resort. Located, as its name intimates, 1,800m above sea level, the cultural centre – the result of a €26m building programme – is the highest of its kind in Europe and encompasses a concert hall, artists’ studio and exhibition space. Described by Vienna Philharmonic CEO Andreas Grossbauer as a ‘milestone on the road to a fusion of the arts’, it will host concerts, classes and workshops, as well as an artists-in-residence programme. World-class skiing, 300km of hiking and mountain-biking trails, not to mention adrenaline-fuelled activities such as rafting and canyoning – St Christoph now has everything required to be a year-round destination. arlberghospiz.at

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PROFILE

HÉCTOR MARTELLI The polo commentator tries to fnd a solution to the long-running debate about the unifcation of rules among the international governing bodies ILLUSTRATION PHIL DISLEY

In this article, I want to explain and analyse issues surrounding the rules of polo. When discussing this particular subject, the frst thing that comes to my mind is that, unlike other sports, there is not one single set of guidelines for the game worldwide. Surprising as that sounds, this situation has come about because of four different sets of regulations that have been established by various different polo associations – not to mention the few countries that go on to apply their own rules. Looking back at the history of polo, it was the British who brought the sport from India and who were the frst to set the rules of polo, in 1873 – as they did with many other sports. Its popularity quickly spread to the United States and Argentina, in addition to other European countries. However, as time went by, the game of kings acquired it own rules according to each country in which it was played. This is why polo has become the only sport with four different types of rules, each with clear differences in content. Here, I am referring to the rules set by the Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA), United States Polo Association (USPA), Asociación Argentina de Polo (AAP) and the Federation of International Polo (FIP), which has since added rules from all three associations.

Therefore, and depending on where a polo match is played, players and referees alike need to be familiar with all these differences. To me, this is meaningless. The majority of the time, the players who take part in the most important tournaments organised by different governing bodies of the sport are the same. And, at the same time, these players are umpired by referees who are called in to do their job in the world’s most important polo destinations. As a result, both players and referees continually have to adjust to a different set of rules each time they arrive in a new country. This issue was a matter of discussion between the three most important Associations (HPA, USPA and AAP) a few years ago. Unfortunately, there was little progress on the matter and no conclusion was reached, probably due to a battle of egos and disagreements between associations. After an analysis of the rules, I can see the HPA and AAP’s are similar, but with slight differences. At the same time, if we put them together, we can appreciate these rules are the most commonly applied worldwide. Indeed, the UK, Netherlands, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, UAE, Barbados and Jamaica, among others, play according to the HPA rules. South

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America, Spain – with some local ruling – and Italy play under the AAP rules. On the other hand, there are just a few countries that play under the USPA rules – namely the US, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic and some other countries in Central America. I will highlight these slight disagreements, each of which I think could be resolved if those parties interested could take the time to sit together and discuss with good intentions. 1. Line of the ball and right of way. Both associations defne the line of the ball as the extended path along which the ball has travelled or is travelling. The HPA specifes that the right of way is what gives the player the rights and obligations within ball possession – but this is also what the AAP says about the line of the ball. And so, despite appearing to be different, the principles of both rules are the same. 2. When referring to walking, the AAP says: a player in possession marked by an opposing player must remain in movement. If the player ceases movement, the umpire will stop play and award a throw-in on the spot. The HPA states exactly the same, but adds that the opposing player should be at least at a distance of two horses’ lengths and that the players in possession can tap the ball only once,

PROFILE

Having one set of rules applied worldwide will beneft polo

after which they must immediately leave it, accelerate with it or hit it away. Should the player leave it for another member of his team to take, that player, whether challenged or not, must immediately run with it or hit it away without the option of a tap. In my opinion, it is easier for the umpires to penalise according to the HPA rules than the AAP rules. 3. A very important rule that is penalised by the HPA is when a player takes a full swing under a pony’s neck, particularly while being ridden off. However, this rule regarding the misuse of the mallet – explaining that the mallet should not pass ahead of the opposing player’s pony’s forelegs – does not exist in the AAP rules. As this constitutes very dangerous play, I would urge the AAP to add this type of penalty to their list of rules. 4. Another slight variation in rules concerns a hidden way to hurt a pony by dropping the head of the polo stick onto the pony’s rump. The HPA considers this to be a foul, while the AAP only states no pony should be hurt by a mallet.

5. The AAP allows players to defend a 30-yard Penalty 2 shot by coming out behind the line and out of the goalposts. The HPA, however, does not allow this type of defence. I think players should be allowed to defend in this way. It is more dangerous to allow players to defend only 30 yards from the ball during a Penalty 4 (60 yards) than running the same distance with speed while defending a Penalty 2. 6. The HPA specifes that the striker must have the intent to carry out a penalty in only one hit and, if he misdirects, mis-hits or misses the ball completely, he, or any member of his team, may only hit or hit at the ball with a half shot. Only the AAP states that the ball is at play. 7. Circling is penalised by the HPA whether it is done right or left. According to AAP rules, the circling is a foul on the right side, because, whether a cross occurs or does not happen, it goes left. I guess the HPA determined that to oblige a player to hit a backhander. 8. The HPA does not allow players to hit ponies with a whip when they are not playing

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– that is, before the start of the match, between a chukka or during stopped play. The AAP does not consider this situation. Following this detailed analysis, I believe an approach between the HPA and AAP is needed to agree and unify the criteria on these slight differences. This should be encouraged by the FIP, where the three involved countries – Argentina, the UK and the US – have vice-presidents, as well as directives and members of the rules committee. If the two aforementioned agree, the USPA must follow them, meaning that at least most of the countries where polo is played will do so under the same rules. Therefore, having one set of rules applied worldwide will beneft polo, with clear rules for players and umpires, and for the fans who follow the sport on television. The FIP is also currently negotiating with the International Olympic Committee to bring polo back to the Olympic Games – so it is very important to have just one clear set of rules before this application is approved.

This page Argentine Open, 1976, (from left) Alfredo and Juan Carlos Harriott, and Horacio and Alberto Heguy Opposite Juan Carlos Harriott Sr, Alfredo Harriott and Juan Carlitos Harriott in 1968

THE CORONEL SUÁREZ STORY In the third and fnal part of our series on the legendary polo team, Ade Adedeji and José Ramón Santamarina examine its extraordinary culture and the infuence of others on its success

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ADE ADEDEJI; PEPE SANTAMARINA; BRENDA LYNN POLO MUSEUM

This is our last article on the exceptional Coronel Suárez polo team and their remarkable story. The frst two parts of the series (in the October 2014 and February 2015 issues of Hurlingham) highlighted two key aspects: their focus on creating an effective organisation and their equally effective leadership through Juan Carlos Harriott Sr and his son, Juan Carlitos Harriott. In this last part, we will look at how culture plays a critical role in building successful organisations and also provide some insight into how Coronel Suárez leveraged this aspect in their success. The culture of an organisation is, to put it simply, the way an organisation does things. When individuals embrace a culture, it defnes not only their principles but their beliefs about themselves and others; it defnes their values and it directs their actions. A culture comes with certain practices and carries a lot of weight in the determination of roles and responsibilities, and thus has a signifcant impact on how decision-making occurs. In

his book The Culture Cycle, Professor James L Heskett, head of business logistics at Harvard Business School, says that effective organisational culture can account for a 20 to 30 per cent differential in corporate performance when compared with culturally unremarkable competitors. This sets a clear distinction between ‘culturally remarkable’ and ‘culturally unremarkable’ organisations.

Culturally remarkable organisations Using this key component of Prof. Heskett’s assertion, we defne ‘culturally remarkable’ organisations as those whose successes can be traced back to a distinct, unique culture established and practised religiously within the organisation. Shaping the culture was crucial to the long-term success of Coronel Suárez. It was central to the level of collaboration, both on and off the feld, and to how competitive the team would become year after year, leading to

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its remarkable record, which includes 10 consecutive Argentine Open Championships between 1961 and 1970. Effective leadership and culturally remarkable organisations are inextricably linked. Creating a culture that helps an organisation remain competitive should be the focus of the leadership, as it was with Juan Carlos Harriott Sr and Coronel Suárez. We established in the previous article that Juan Carlos Harriott Sr was the visionary behind the team, providing leadership during their foundation years, 1956 to 1964. During this period, the role of organisational culture as a competitive differentiator and strategic tool was something he understood and cared very deeply about. Our conversations with his son and Alberto Heguy – both team members – revealed that Juan Carlos Harriott Sr dedicated a great amount of time and effort to the Coronel Suárez project. This is important because, to achieve any success with organisational culture, leaders must have a clear sense of purpose, be dedicated and,

This page, clockwise from top USA 1977, on the podium with team Retama and Prince Charles; Hurlingham Open, 1963; 1980 winners of the Argentine Open Opposite, from top The Tortugas team (standing), and Coronel Suárez (sitting), Argentine Open, 1960; with young fans during their frst game of the 40-goal in La Pampa, 1976

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above all, be authentic and believable. It was this that made it possible for him to establish a unique culture learnt through his relationship with members of the Venado Tuerto team, and to embed these cultural practices within the organisational fabric of Coronel Suárez. Juan Carlos Harriott Sr sought to establish the best ways of doing things, in order to mould his individual performers into strong team players and enable the team to succeed the Coronel Suárez way.

Origins of the Coronel Suárez culture

ADE ADEDEJI; PEPE SANTAMARINA; BRENDA LYNN POLO MUSEUM

The Coronel Suárez Polo Club is based in the town of Coronel Suárez, about 500 miles from Buenos Aires. Polo started in earnest there with the completion of the club and felds in 1928. Historically, teams competing at the Argentine Open represented mostly country clubs or family estancias – and Coronel Suárez was no exception. The 19th century had seen the emergence of railroads to network the country and enable the growth of commercial farming activities. Many of these clubs grew out of a need for the British settlers involved in this to socialise with fellow immigrants and engage in familiar sports such as cricket, rugby and foxhunting. These clubs naturally became the meeting places for families and friends – a practice and tradition that had taken root in Britain and was brought to Argentina. Other clubs who share a similar history include Hurlingham, Los Pingüinos, Venado Tuerto, Los Indios and El Trébol, who have all contributed to the game in no small measure. By the time the frst game was played on the Coronel Suárez Polo Club felds, there was already signifcant interest in polo and it had

been played at the nearby Estancia La María, owned by the Garros family. By the time the club was inaugurated, it included at least 16 players, including Enrique Alberdi and Manuel Andrada. Another key fgure instrumental in establishing the culture of training and mentoring at the club was Enrique Padilla. A military offcer, as well as an accomplished player, he was on the Argentina team that won the Olympic gold in Paris in 1926, as well as the Hurlingham team that won the Argentine Open in 1926 and 1929. Alongside Alberdi, Padilla teamed up with Eduardo and Ricardo Garros for the very frst game at the club. Born in Coronel Suárez, Manuel Andrada was another key infuence; polo historians refer to him as the frst ‘gaucho’ to achieve signifcant success as a player. He was one of the most remarkable of his generation, considering he started as a farm hand and was not allowed to play polo, only to train horses for the owners of the estancia. Against these odds, his achievements as an elite player (rated a 9-goal at his prime) include six Argentine Open championships on four different teams and an Olympic gold medal (Berlin 1936). He also won the US Open at Meadowbrook in 1931 with an Argentine team while on tour after winning the Pacifc Coast Open. The foundations for the club’s culture and tradition established by Andrada and Padilla were crucial, and benefciaries included the Alberdi and Garros brothers. In 1930 and 1931, the Coronel Suárez team won the Copa República Argentina, the second most important tournament on the calendar of the

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BUENOS AIRES CORONEL SUÁREZ

ARGENTINA

Right, from top February 2015, Juan Carlos Harriott Jr (centre) is inducted into the US Polo Hall of Fame; working on the Coronel Suárez project at the Harriott Estancia, La Felisa, in 2013, with Alfredo Harriott (left) and José R. Santamarina

Argentine Polo Association after the Argentine Open Championship, and went on to win the tournament a record 15 times. In 1934, Coronel Suárez won their frst Argentine Open with a team made up of the two pairs of siblings.

The 1920s was a period marked by economic, social, artistic and cultural dynamism in cities around the world. But if there was ever such a time of increased creativity and innovation in the history of polo, it would have to be the 1940s. This period witnessed the emergence and subsequent dominance of two teams – El Trébol and Venado Tuerto, who won the Argentine Open a total of 11 times between 1939 and 1950. The vision for Coronel Suárez, and the team’s culture, was greatly infuenced by these two polo powerhouses. El Trébol – representing a relatively new club of the same name – were anchored by brothers Heriberto and Luis Duggan, and Charlie and Julio Menditeguy. The team dominated the Argentine scene from 1939, winning consecutive championships until 1943, by which point they had attained a total handicap of 39 goals. Perhaps what was most unique about their success was the fact that the Duggan and Menditeguy families had a reputation for being top polo-pony breeders. In his book The Evolution of Polo, renowned polo historian Horace Laffaye gives us an idea of what made El Trébol so special and what would essentially become key aspects of the Coronel Suárez culture: ‘What made this team so good was a combination of superb ponies, lightning speed, accurate hitting and brilliant team play – and the immeasurable addition of good chemistry among the players.’ He goes on to describe how El Trébol were mentored by Lewis Lacey, who taught them the principle that the ball travels faster than the man. These key aspects were taken on board and soon became part of the Coronel Suárez culture, too. The Venado Tuerto team was put together to counter the dominance of El Trébol. This team consisted of the Alberdi brothers from Coronel Suárez and Roberto and Juan Cavanagh from Venado Tuerto, and the team fnally achieved their objective in 1944 by defeating El Trébol. Venado Tuerto then continued their success by winning consecutive championships between 1946 and 1950 and somewhat setting the stage for the emergence of the Coronel Suárez team as we know it – Juan Carlos Harriott and Enrique Alberdi collaborated to win a

championship for Coronel Suárez in 1952. Fast-forward to 1962, which was another successful year for Coronel Suárez, and the team, comprising Juan Carlos Harriott Sr, Juan Carlos Harriott Jr, Horacio Heguy and Daniel González, had just won two consecutive championships (1961 and 1962). For many observers, this was the perfect line-up – they were extremely competitive, well-mounted and playing perfect polo. The investments and efforts in team-building were paying off – or so it seemed from the outside – but Juan Carlos Harriott Sr knew there was still work to be done. He had one overriding message for his players: we are not yet playing like a real team. Diego Bonadeo captured it best in an article for El Gráfco sports magazine following the conclusion of the 1962 Argentine season, where he wrote about Horacio Heguy’s

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comment during an interview, that Coronel Suárez were not yet playing like EL Trébol and Venado Tuerto had done 20 years previously and needed to be involved in more practice games to attain that goal. Clearly, Heguy had bought into the vision of Juan Carlos Harriott and saw El Trébol and Venado Tuerto as models for Coronel Suárez. Combined with his own ideas, a clear sense of purpose and authenticity that made it possible for him to create a unique team culture based on established best practices, Juan Carlos Harriott Sr adopted and adapted many of their practices to achieve the success of his own organisation. In our upcoming book, The Coronel Suárez Way, we further explore aspects of the culture, examining how it prioritised the preparation of the players and the team, placing a premium on team success over individual achievements. Juan Carlos Harriott Sr required each member to be completely committed to the programme. Anything other than this meant they were not permitted to be a part of the team’s future. He also leveraged the practice of using mentors and mentoring relationships, utilising Enrique and Juan Carlos Alberdi as mentors for his son, Juan Carlos, as he groomed him to take over the leadership role and, most importantly, to maintain the remarkable organisational culture of Coronel Suárez when he eventually stepped down from the team. This he eventually did after Coronel Suárez won its 4th consecutive title in 1964. During one of our many discussions with Juan Carlos Harriott Jr at his ranch, La Felisa, in Coronel Suárez, he recalled his father’s famous words, repeated to him many times during the foundation years of Coronel Suárez: ‘Copy the Alberdis – don’t copy me.’

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El Trébol and Venado Tuerto

PGH LA PALMERAIE POLO CLUB THREE FIELDS BETWEEN LARACHE AND ASSILAH ABOUT 20 MILES FROM TANGER AIRPORT

DOLFI

PSA THEOL / LA NONA

CHAPALEFU CANADIENCE POLO NEVADITO / CANITA

GENERAL MANAGER: M. EL AMMARI POLO MANAGER: NACHO

+ 212 661 153 316 + 212 641 323 011

NAIMANE DE BROU

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Theatre producer Michael Butler, who brought Hair to Broadway, has played a key role in the running of his family’s club at Oak Brook. Throughout his long and colourful life, polo has always remained centre stage

LESLIE HASSLER

FAME AND THE GAME

Opposite Michael Butler This page, from top Butler (left), with his brother Frank and sister Jorie in 1933; and showjumping circa 1948

Polo has had more infuence on my life than anything else. It all started with the ponies we had as children. The three of us – myself and my siblings, Jorie and Frank – used to ride around Oak Brook, the several-thousand-acre plot of land in Illinois that had been acquired by my grandfather, Frank O Butler, and which had been used for cattle and horses. Back in those days, it was scarcely known. My father, who inherited the property, had a passion for polo and, in 1922, with my grandfather’s help, built the frst polo feld there. It was an idyllic life for us children. We would roam around, riding and fox hunting, and ice skating on frozen ponds in the winter. Meanwhile, my father continued to develop it, adding more polo felds, a golf course and an archery range. There were 16 farmhouses, each one a home for some of his friends, who were primarily polo players or fox hunters. There was also an airstrip, used frequently by players visiting from all over the country. Unfortunately, my riding experience was abruptly interrupted when I broke my right arm in a nasty accident involving a downward trapdoor and several rusty nails. Because my arm had no movement in it, polo was out and I concentrated instead on showjumping. I had high hopes of becoming a professional, and in my frst major competition down in Memphis, I won $500. I was very proud that day. Later, I began to move more into fox hunting. We had two packs at Oak Brook: a drag pack and a live fox pack, and I became obsessed with the sport. I ended up attending the University of Virginia, and there, after

one year, the dean told my father, ‘We have a serious problem with your son. He is only able to attend school on Sunday, when there are no classes.’ Dad was confused – until he realised I was fox hunting six days a week with three different packs. Meanwhile, back at Oak Brook, polo was becoming even more predominant. In 1954, Meadowbrook, on Long Island – the polo capital of the country – was sold, which meant the USPA didn’t have a home for the US Open. My father offered to create that home at Oak Brook and, in 1954, started building 14 polo felds and 400 stalls to take care of the teams. In the late 1950s, I was doing some work, mostly in the Middle East, for the Butler Overseas Company. I returned to Oak Brook and my sister Jorie and I started to share the running of the polo grounds. One afternoon, my father called me to the polo wing and told me that Colonel Prem Singh, the polo-playing Indian maharaja, was not coming to Oak Brook that summer. ‘Why don’t you take his

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ponies and join the team?’ he suggested. I couldn’t believe my ears! I was to play alongside my father, which meant the world to me, Jackie Murphy, one of my closest friends, and the globally top-ranked Cecil Smith. I entered into an intense period of practice and lessons from Cecil and Jackie, who mostly told me, ‘Hit the ball! Hit the ball!’ As well as being active in the management side of the club and the Butler Company at that time, I was elected as a governor for the USPA Central Circuit and became actively involved in polo politics. The US Open was now under pressure from the Chinese/Hawaiian Tongg family, who wanted to host it at the Santa Barbara Polo Club, which they were running at that time. This created a lot of trouble among USPA board members – to the point of racist remarks being made. My father pooh-poohed the whole thing and, in 1966, the Open was transferred to Santa Barbara. Later, it went to Memphis. Neither place worked, however, because it was very hard to compete with Oak

This page, from below left An aerial view of Oak Brook in 1954; its stable block Opposite, clockwise from top The Butler family in Florida circa 1977; a poster for Hair, the musical; Butler, third from left, with Mike and Fred Dailey, Tony Devitch and other members of the Warfeld team, winners of 1972 Dublin Phoenix Park Irish Gold Cup

Brook – being so close to Chicago, the club was very central. It returned to hosting the Open, and continued to do so right up until 1978. Another USPA issue that arose during my time as a governor was the question of ladies being registered as players. This reached a crescendo with Sue Sally Hale – many of my fellow governors were violently against her registration. A couple of them went as far as to say they would resign if women were allowed to play polo. The governors’ meeting was to be held at the Everglades Club in Palm Beach that year – and our home in Palm Beach was within the Everglades compound. Jorie and I discussed this problem with our father over breakfast and suggested a solution that he accepted. He went to the meeting and said, ‘What if I propose Jorie as a USPA player and then have her registered as such?’ When the opposing governors heard this suggestion, they immediately knew the jig was up and Sue Sally Hale was soon registered. It was a great new beginning for polo in the United States. I continued to be actively involved with polo at Oak Brook throughout the 1960s, and was particularly involved with the efforts of Otto Kerner to be re-elected as Governor of Illinois. We had a major tournament tied to the Illinois Sports Council, of which I was

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chairman. The success of this event, and Otto’s re-election, paved the way for me to enter politics and, in 1967, I decided that I would run for the US Senate. My patrons were Governor Kerner and Mayor Daley of Chicago. I wound up going down to New York with Governor Kerner for the US Civil Rights Commission, which he was chairing. While there, I went to the preview of a musical called Hair and thought it was the strongest anti-war statement I’d ever seen. I wanted it to be brought to Chicago and have my constituents see it, but it wasn’t possible. A couple of days later, on my return home, I met with my political PR man, Hal Evry. ‘Michael,’ he said, ‘you can win this election to the US Senate, but you’re going to have to

Oak Brook returned to hosting the US Open, and continued to do so right up until 1978

change your lifestyle – and polo will be history.’ That, coupled with various other events, would make a political career diffcult. So when I was called by Joe Papp, the founder of the Public Theater, to get involved with Hair, I did. And at that point, my whole life changed. Hair opened at the end of April 1968. Shortly after, I left Oak Brook and moved to Montecito in California, where I joined the Santa Barbara Polo Club. Ronnie Tongg, son of Rudy, was managing the club, and we began to play polo together. When he fnished law

school, I invited him to be my personal lawyer and the lawyer for Hair. It was the beginning of a great friendship and a strong, lasting professional relationship. One day, Ronnie remarked, ‘You know, if you really want to experience the best polo, the place to go is England.’ So that was it – we decided to go. After teaming up with the Linfoots, Heath Manning – one of my best friends from South Carolina – and Tony Devitch, we shipped our horses and arrived in Britain in the early 1970s. We had an

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incredible season, winning almost every tournament we entered, and Hair had a very successful run in London. Ronnie was right about British polo. Not only was the sport beautifully organised – it was a lot more fun. One of the most interesting experiences I had involved Prince Philip. We were in the changing room at Guards and he asked me, ‘Michael, if you weren’t producing, what would you do? You were in politics beforehand, weren’t you?’ I said, ‘Sir, I would like to be your butler at Hampton Court Palace

and I would want 10 per cent of everything that went in and out, and the casting privileges for the upstairs maids and the footmen.’ He thought that was very funny. I soon decided I wanted to buy a place in Britain and spend more time there. My lady, Boo Brassy, one day happened to see Warfeld Hall, a house built in the 1700s that was now owned by Italian shipping magnates who were not living there but had sort of gussied it up. I ended up buying it, bringing in an architect and returning it to its original architectural form. It was a wonderful place to live. Shortly after we moved in, Tony Devitch, who had played alongside me continuously, introduced me to Stuart Mackenzie, who joined our team. Another player, Mike Dailey from Hawaii, had played with me at Oak Brook and become a very close friend. His father, Fred, also came to Britain and joined us for some games. Mike and Stuart became key members of the Warfeld team, and Sandy Harper occasionally joined in the action. A great time was had by all, the highlight being two Gold Cup wins, in 1972 and 1973.

Unfortunately, however, I was experiencing continual problems with the USPA. The chairman, Bill Ylvisaker, was a personal friend, but we had different opinions about the money scene in polo and what it would do to the sport. Through my many trips to New York, I had become close to Ralph Lauren and respected him enormously. So I started to make a real cause for the USPA to join up with Polo Ralph Lauren. I thought it would be a great opportunity for both sides, but I faced considerable opposition from George Haas, Bill Ylvisaker and a couple of others. This began to cloud my relationship with the USPA because it really took a ruthless position on the matter. I think time has proven them wrong. Around this time, Patrick Beresford and I started chatting about a wild idea to have an

British polo was not only beautifully organised – it was a lot more fun

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Opposite, from top The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh present the Jaipur Cup to (from left) Michael Butler, Heath Manning, Billy Linfoot and Ronnie Tongg; Warfeld Hall in Berkshire, Butler’s former home This page, from top Butler with Mike Dailey, president of the Hawaii Polo Club, circa 1974, after they had won the Delegates Cup in the Florida USPA; the writer during rehearsals of Hair in 1968

international match between the USA and England. I had a fair number of ponies at Warfeld, and an American called Hap Sharp had a lot down at Cowdray that we could use. So Patrick went to the Queen and asked her if we could play for a new Coronation Cup, the last having been held back in 1953. We decided to hold the frst match, in 1971, at Cowdray, where it was very well received. However, as fond as I was of the Cowdray family, I thought we ought to move it the following year to Guards at Windsor, because it was closer to London and we could therefore sell the match better. Ronnie Ferguson, the club’s manager, helped us and did a fantastic job promoting it. There was an agreement with the HPA that in the case of the medium-goal matches, comprised mostly of younger people, there would be no professionals involved. This came into serious question during the second year at Guards. Bill Ylvisaker wanted his son to compete, but he was not strong enough to play without a professional, so Corky Linfoot was added to the team, despite my objections. This

addition violated my agreement with the HPA and I had already put together my team, headed by Mike Dailey. Nonetheless, I was overruled by the USPA – a decision that ultimately ended our relationship. Although I wanted to live primarily in Britain, we started having some problems with the Hair flm project, so I had to return to the USA. I started playing again at the Santa Barbara Polo Club and had a great time with Glen Holden, who had done a terrifc job in reorganising it after Ronnie Tongg had returned to Hawaii to care for his father. Then a dreadful thing happened with the Hair flm: we lost our director to drugs. His absence left a major hole in the production and we frantically tried to reorganise everything. Exhausted by the situation, I decided to return to Oak Brook. I shipped the ponies back home and left Britain for good just before the flm was released. My plan was to get myself together, then return to the West Coast for more work in the entertainment business. Tragically, on 24 June 1981 – the day after his 89th birthday – my father was knocked down and killed by

a car as he walked to his girlfriend’s cottage. As a consequence, I had to take over and manage both the Oak Brook Development Company and the Butler Company. Until 1991, I continued to work at Oak Brook and manage the polo club, among other things. I developed a plan to have international teams visit and play there while I built a social-events programme around the tournaments. It was easy to fnd sponsors and the whole polo scene really thrived. I remember supplying Prince Charles with ponies for the 1986 International Cup at Oak Brook – the only time he played in the United States with an all-British team – and they won. Nothing could compare with the effect polo has had on my life. It became the major governing factor, infuencing all my activities, my scheduling, where I lived and a great number of the people with whom I spent time. It was particularly wonderful to be able to compete in a sport I’d been told I would not be able to play again. I enjoyed putting together winning teams and, maybe more so, running the clubs and dealing with the international community. People, ponies and pleasure: I hold those things dear to my heart.

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SCREEN PLAY The golden age of cinema was also a heyday for polo in flm, says Nigel à Brassard

Many readers will have vivid memories of Julia Roberts, elegantly dressed in her brown silk polka-dot sun dress, treading in the divots with Richard Gere at the polo match in the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman. Some may also remember the polo action scenes in The Great Gatsby of 1974, starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. Not to mention the polo sequences of Steve McQueen in the 1968 version of The Thomas Crown Affair, in which he starred alongside Faye Dunaway, where the

elaborate split-screen device maximises the visual impact and excitement of a match. Of course, there is also that scene in the 1968 flm Carry On up the Khyber, in which Sir Sidney and Lady Ruff-Diamond (Sid James and Joan Sims) watch a polo match. At one point Sir Sidney shouts, ‘Well played, Philip!’ and then, as an aside, ‘He’ll go far, that boy, if he makes the right marriage.’ Lady RuffDiamond – channelling the spirit of Eliza Doolittle at Ascot in My Fair Lady – exclaims

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in a mock posh accent, ‘Oh, I say! He did not ’alf crack that one, did he not?’ But these feeting appearances of the sport pale into insignifcance when you consider its substantial presence in the movies during the golden age of cinema in the 1920s and 30s. Clockwise from above Stills and publicity material from 1925’s A Thief in Paradise, of which only the trailer now remains. The polo match, between blondes and brunettes, is the highlight of a lavish wedding

A special match is put on between two teams of women playing in swimsuits

in swimsuits without helmets is put on as part of the extravagant entertainment. During the wedding day, the jealous Carmino tells Helen she is Blake’s mistress. Blake, haunted by his conscience, confesses his deception to his new wife and ‘father’, then attempts to kill himself. Helen and Jardine Senior forgive Blake and, in true Hollywood style, the two newlyweds live happily ever after. The gratuitous opulence is typical of the movies of the early 1920s, but after the Wall Street Crash in 1929, audiences no longer had patience for the antics of such characters.

A THIEF IN PARADISE

IMAGES COURTESY OF NIGEL À BRASSARD

PRODUCTION: GEORGE FITZMAURICE , SAMUEL GOLDW YN CO. RELE ASE DATE: 1925

The spectacular, if unlikely, round of chukkas in the 1925 silent flm A Thief in Paradise, starring Ronald Colman and Doris Kenyon, caused quite a stir at the time. Now offcially considered a lost movie, with only its trailer still in existence, it is loosely based on the novel The Worldlings by Leonard Merrick – a rags-to-riches tale of identity fraud. Maurice Blake (Colman) and Philip Jardine (Claude Gillingwater) are beachcombers on a remote island. One day, on a dive, the two men fght over a precious pearl and Jardine is killed by a shark. His calculating lover, Rosa Carmino, has a letter from his wealthy father urging his son to return to San Francisco. Since the elder Jardine has never seen his son, Carmino convinces Blake to go and pretend to be Philip. Blake is warmly welcomed into the Jardine household and soon falls in love with Helen Saville (Kenyon), the daughter of a neighbour. The couple marry in a lavish ceremony at which a special polo match between two teams of women – blondes versus brunettes – playing

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THIS SPORTING AGE PRODUCTION: COLUMBIA PICTURES RELE ASE DATE: 1932

In 1932, polo took the spotlight again with This Sporting Age (subsequently retitled The Stronger Love), a flm starring Jack Holt and based on a story by JK McGuiness. This was Holt’s second appearance as a polo player on the silver screen. Four years earlier, he had played a US team captain battling for the Westchester Cup against Great Britain in This Smart Set (1928) – a silent comedy about an arrogant, aristocratic polo player, played by William Haines. In This Sporting Age, John Steele (Holt) is the regional polo champion at a Western army post. Rising star Johnny Raeburn (Hardie Albright), on a visit from the fashionable Seabrook Polo Club of Long Island, persuades Steele to join the US team for a forthcoming match. During his visit, Raeburn begins a romance with Steele’s daughter Mickey (Evalyn Knapp), and they are soon engaged to be married. Steele accepts the invitation and, on their arrival in Long Island, Raeburn takes father and daughter to a reception for the visiting international team but leaves without saying where he is going. Assuming the worst, Mickey drowns her sorrows, and falls prey to the seductive charms of visiting player Charles Morrell (Walter Byron).

After the episode, Mickey is mortifed and, believing herself worthless, tries to kill herself. When Steele fnds out, he is determined to avenge his daughter, playing ferociously in the match, especially against Morrell. Eventually, his fatherly instincts prevail over his common sense and Morrell is killed when Steele aggressively rides him off. The dejected Steeles return home after Mickey has told Raeburn that she cannot marry him. The flm ends with Steele facing trial for manslaughter and Raeburn arriving and fnally convincing Mickey to marry him.

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Right Joe E Brown, one of the most popular American actors of the 1930s and 40s and perhaps best remembered for his role as the ageing millionaire Osgood Fielding III in Some Like It Hot, performed all his own stunts in the slapstick comedy Polo Joe, which nevertheless failed to win over the flm’s critics

POLO JOE PRODUCTION: WARNER BROTHERS. RELE ASE DATE: 1936

It wasn’t long before a comic actor got hold of the subject and let rip on the feld. Polo Joe was a comedy starring the popular Joe E Brown as ‘Polo’ Joe Bolton. A review by Hal Erickson at Allmovie.com concluded that ‘the plot and comedy of the flm can be summed up easily. The hapless Joe is allergic to and terrifed of horses, but joins a polo club to impress his sweetheart Mary Hilton (Carol Hughes).’ Joe is helped in his endeavours by Haywood (Richard Gallagher), the Hiltons’ sympathetic butler. But Joe’s scheme backfres when Mary’s polo-playing brother is injured and Joe has to put his feet in the stirrups to prove himself. Haywood gives something to Joe to help his allergies and straps him on to his saddle with an elastic belt. Joe miraculously manages to score a few goals before the belt snaps and he goes fying. The flm ends with Mary declaring her intention to marry him anyway – after all, he is the hero of the game. Upon its release in 1936, it was lambasted by critics as the worst ever Joe E Brown movie. Subsequent literature noted that Brown does all

IMAGES COURTESY OF NIGEL À BRASSARD

Joe is allergic to and terrifed of horses, but joins a polo club to impress his sweetheart

his own stunts, which is ‘more impressive than amusing’. The New York Times called the flm ‘an unenterprising slapstick’ and ‘a faintly pathetic farewell gesture to the Warners’. None of these flms – which have recurring themes of equestrian ineptitude or phobia, drunken misbehaviour and suicide attempts

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– appears to have troubled the judging panels for the Oscars. But it is perhaps signifcant that Walt Disney chose an animated version of Jack Holt (star of This Sporting Age and The Smart Set) as the umpire in his hilarious 1936 cartoon Mickey’s Polo Team. Perhaps the reason polo has featured in so many flms is due to its associations with money and glamour – after all, it is known as the sport of royalty and playboys. It is interesting that in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, director John McTiernan replaced the polo scene, which had been in the original movie and script, with catamaran racing. McTiernan thought a polo match to be too much of a cliché, and wanted to convey a different kind of action and excitement that wasn’t so closely associated with wealth.

thai polo & equestr i a n club pat taya – t h a i l a n d • pa d d o c k s & s ta b l e s f o r 2 0 0 h o r s e s • i n t e r nat iona l c ro s s c ou n t ry c ou r s e • r ege lu dw ig i n t e r nat iona l polo sc hool • t o u r n a m e n t s u p t o 14 g oa l s

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• t h a i s pa & s a lt wat e r p o o l

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ACTION THE LATEST POLO DATE ACTION LOCATION FROM TIME AROUND ETC. THE WORLD

Facundo Pieres on the ball at the Gold Cup, chased by Santi Stirling

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THE ACTION 48

Queen’s Cup Two titanic teams battled it out in front of 5,500 spectators at Guards Polo Club

East Coast Open One of the most exciting fnishes ever in the history of the tournament

Gold Cup A pair of powerhouses met in the fnal, but King Power Foxes were victorious

58 52

Coronation Cup England once again saw off Argentina, in the UK’s most prestigious test match EFG Bicentennial British Army triumphed over Cambridge Two at Sandhurst in a historic game

Côte d’Azur Cup The inaugural 18-goal tournament hosted at the newly refurbished Saint-Tropez Polo Club

UK Kids’ Tour The frst event for the sport’s rising stars

Morocco One man’s vision of a competitive polo club has fnally come to fruition in the impressive shape of La Palmeraie

Sotogrande Season There may have been fewer teams taking part in 2015, but there was certainly no reduction in thrills

Polo by the Sea As usual, the Gold Coast instalment of the annual beachside tournament drew a celebrity crowd to watch some top-rated teams

Polo in the Park Record numbers enjoyed high-octane international matches at Hurlingham

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ACTION CARTIER QUEEN’S CUP, GUARDS POLO CLUB, WINDSOR, UK, 19 MAY – 14 JUNE 2015

QUEEN’S CUP With King Power Foxes the superior force in this year’s prestigious tournament, the future of high-goal looks optimistic, reports Diana Butler

It’s easy to pinpoint exactly when King Power Foxes began to dominate the English high-goal season: it started on Tuesday 19 May in the first Cartier Queen’s Cup game of 2015, when Facundo and Gonzalito Pieres showed that by playing together they could add at least a goal to their respective handicaps. They beat Hilali Noordeen’s VPS Healthcare Sifani 17–9 on the opening day and continued their unbeaten run throughout the tournament, beating Dubai 11–10 in a thrilling final on 14 June to claim the trophy. Guards Polo Club polo manager Antony Fanshawe believes the sibling factor definitely played a large part in the team’s success: ‘The Pieres boys’ intimate understanding of each other’s game, and the trust this brings when all is going wrong, is invaluable. Great players play better under pressure, and the Foxes always react positively when the chips are down.’ Fanshawe also notes their victories away from the field: ‘The team have a wonderful organisation behind them, so credit must go to everyone at King Power who worked hard to make this win possible. In addition, they not only have very good horses, but were extremely well prepared and focused for the crunch games.’ He believes the team had other advantages to draw upon, too. ‘Hugo [Lewis], after showing

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Opposite, from top Martín Valent on the ball, in the sixth chukka of the fnal; last-minute substitute in the Dubai team Alejo Taranco races for the ball This page, from top Facundo Pieres celebrates the winning goal on his pony Magnifca; the Queen and Arnaud Bamberger present the awards

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flashes of quality in the Cartier Queen’s Cup, grew into a fantastic third player in the Gold Cup. Their patron, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, plays brilliantly and seems to ooze a relaxed, easy-going confidence that must be great for the team’s mentality.’ It should also be said that luck played a part in King Power’s win. Many of the top teams sustained injury to their key players, forcing player changes and revised line-ups. Juan Martín Nero injured his hand in Zacara’s first game, forcing him to miss the rest of the tournament. Of course, there are only ever a handful of 10-goalers around, and these superstars were already committed to other Queen’s Cup teams, which meant patron Lyndon Lea had to look further afield to find replacements. Meanwhile, Dubai also went into the final with an altered line-up, as Adolfo Cambiaso had fallen in the semis and so was ruled out of the final. Dubai had an advantage over Zacara, however: as this was the final match, they were able to call on the 10-goal skills of Pablo MacDonough. Away from the field of play, this year’s final marked the retirement of Cartier UK’s executive chairman Arnaud Bamberger after 23 years at the helm. He has been responsible for some

of the most prestigious polo sponsorship the sport has ever seen, and the Queen acknowledged his dedication to the game by making a presentation to him on behalf of Guards Polo Club during the afternoon of the final. There’s no getting away from the fact that just 12 teams took part in Mr Bamberger’s last-ever Cartier Queen’s Cup tournament. But Neil Hobday, CEO of Guards Polo Club, doesn’t see this as a sign that the high-goal is losing its appeal. ‘I think the fluctuation in numbers is determined by so many different factors,’ he affirmed. ‘I know we work very hard to attract veteran teams and entice new ones into the tournament, and I’m optimistic that we will see more than 12 teams next year.’ Encouraging a healthy number of entrants is especially important, as this year’s sport has been a brilliant platform for up-and-coming British players. In this year’s Queen’s Cup team list, there were 13 home-grown players taking part, including Jack Hyde, Max Charlton, Tom Brodie, Jack Richardson, Charlie and George Hanbury, Richard Le Poer, Matt Perry and Ed Hitchman. ‘Obviously, English polo fans have enjoyed watching English players taking part in the high-goal. I hope our promotion and development of young players, including through the Guards Youth Academy, is a big part of why that is happening,’ said Hobday. ‘However, I also really hope that everyone from top to bottom in English polo makes more effort to produce players who can compete at the highest level.’ One way to encourage more entries, suggests Fanshawe, would be to improve the umpiring

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The Pieres boys’ intimate understanding of each other’s game is invaluable

while raising players’ expectations of it. ‘Umpires need to take more responsibility for their actions,’ he insisted. ‘A worldwide umpire group is a possible answer. The drone is a great way to see what’s going on, and perhaps a panel of former players from Argentina, America, Spain and England could have an elite group of high-goal umpires to choose from – and then police them accordingly.’ He added, however, that players needed to take much more responsibility for how they ‘play’ the umpire, too. ‘It is extremely unfair for them to miss golden chances and then put so much on the umpires. Umpires make mistakes in all sports, and we have to regulate for cheating both by players and officials, but, more importantly, we have to get the umpires and players to protect what is great about the game. Everyone involved needs to take responsibility.’ There are rumours the Pieres boys may split again for the 2016 high-goal, opening the way for other players and teams to add their names to the prestigious high-goal trophies. And with the team at Guards Polo Club working hard to create the most level playing field possible in the high-goal, next year’s tournament should be even more thrilling.

ACTION JAEGER-LECOULTRE GOLD CUP, COWDRAY PARK, WEST SUSSEX, JUNE – JULY 2015

GOLD CUP The fnal saw strong performances from two polo giants, but King Power Foxes were unstoppable, reports Carolina Beresford

There’s no doubt that King Power Foxes have had the season of a lifetime, winning the two most important tournaments in Europe: the Queen’s Cup and the British Gold Cup. In the past five years it has been accomplished three times, though it’s anything but an easy feat: Adolfo Cambiaso managed it alongside Pablo MacDonough with Dubai in 2010 and Facundo Pieres secured both titles together with Rodrigo Andrade in 2013 for Zacara. Now Facundo has done it again, this time with his brother Gonzalito Pieres for King Power Foxes. This year, luxury watchmaker JaegerLeCoultre ran the show, taking over from Veuve Clicquot, who had sponsored the Gold Cup for the past two decades. Already the official sponsor of the Argentine Open, the most important polo tournament in the world, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s

support of the Gold Cup reinforces the brand’s ongoing commitment to polo. This Gold Cup presented one or two surprises – reigning champions Dubai were unexpectedly defeated by Zacara in the quarter-finals and established El Remanso were knocked out by a predominantly English Apes Hill team. The semifinals were less than thrilling, with the strongest teams of the tournament, UAE and King Power

UAE’s tactics were proving unsuccessful. Would they gamble and open the game up?

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Foxes, overpowering Apes Hill and Zacara respectively by a six-goal margin. No one doubted that the final would be a tough game. Gonzalo Pieres Sr noted that UAE had won all their matches easily, while King Power Foxes had to fight hard on more than one occasion – most notably in their first game against La Indiana (which they won in overtime) and their quarterfinal play-off against RH Polo. But, he said, the Foxes held two distinct advantages: strength and depth of ponies, and the intuitive 10-goal double act that made up half the team. ‘Facundo and Gonzalito know each other perfectly,’ he said. ‘They don’t need to talk – they already know what the other is thinking. If King Power play like they did in the semi-finals against Zacara, using the speed of their horses, then they can win the final.’

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favourite mare, Shannon, it became clear that King Power would not leave anything to chance. Hopes soared for UAE when MacDonough scored his first field goal of the match to go two-down halfway through the fifth, but a penalty conversion by Facundo closed the chukka 10–7 in favour of the Foxes. UAE’s tactic of keeping the ball close and avoiding open polo – Facundo and Gonzalito’s preferred style of play – was proving unsuccessful. Would they gamble and open the game up? UAE’s biggest chance of getting back into the game came at the beginning of the sixth,

Opposite Zero-goaler José Ramón Araya rides of 10-goaler Facundo Pieres as Pieres’ brother Gonzalito taps the ball This page, from top On fying form: Santiago Stirling (in white) and Hugo Lewis; Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, seated on the left in front of the winning King Power Foxes team

when 16-year-old José Ramón Araya made a remarkable run towards goal, missing the ball just a few feet shy of the goal line. King Power won the hit in, and Facundo powered down the field to make it 11–8 in his favour. It was downhill for UAE as Lewis scored two consecutive goals to considerably widen his team’s advantage. A final penalty by Facundo sealed the Foxes’ victory 14–8. Would UAE have been more involved in the game had they played open polo? ‘You see things differently when you’re on the field,’ explained Eduardo Heguy. ‘UAE had chances – they missed an opportunity in the fifth to take them within a goal, and that’s when it fell apart. We didn’t expect such a wide margin but, ultimately, the best team of the season won the double.’ Just over a year into their high-goal campaign, King Power Foxes are just getting started. With Most Valuable Player Facundo in their corner and the best organisation in the country backing them, it looks as if the Foxes are well on their way to becoming the biggest thing in European polo.

TONY RAMIREZ/IMAGESOFPOLO.COM

Much was said about the advantages of having an all-pro quartet, even though King Power patron Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha had been playing well all season. But Pite Merlos took a different tack: ‘Having a patron makes you focus. It can be an asset to a player’s state of mind. King Power have confidence in themselves and their team. UAE had easier stages throughout the Gold Cup, and that’s not always a good thing.’ Srivaddhanaprabha levelled the playing field when he scored early in the first chukka, before Facundo, hard-marked by Santiago Stirling, managed to find the goal. Two successful penalties by MacDonough made it 2–2 by the end of the chukka, but it would be the last time UAE matched King Power’s score. Two missed goal chances in the second proved fatal for UAE as King Power outscored them 3–0. Hugo Lewis and Srivaddhanaprabha worked hard in the third to create space for their 10-goalers. With few opportunities to make a clean pass, UAE had to fight for their goals. At half-time, the score was 7–4 in favour of King Power, with all four of UAE’s goals coming from penalty conversions. ‘We were expecting a more even game,’ said Apes Hill player Eduardo Novillo Astrada during the half-time break. ‘UAE are feeling the pressure and they haven’t been able to score. They might want to consider changing their tactics, opening the game and releasing the ball sooner.’ King Power were outrunning their opponents and gaining confidence with every play. When Lucas Monteverde scored in the fourth for UAE it seemed like the game might open up after all. An off-the-ball collision with a minute to go in the chukka left Srivaddhanaprabha momentarily unconscious, and he was replaced by young Englishman Kian Hall. When Facundo rode out on Cube, Best Playing Pony of the Queen’s Cup, and Gonzalito came out on his

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ACTION ROYAL SALUTE CORONATION CUP, GUARDS POLO CLUB, WINDSOR, UK, 25 JULY 2015

CORONATION CUP

Victoria Elsbury-Legg witnessed talented play in the UK’s most prestigious test match, in which South America put up a great fght but the cup stayed at home

South America’s Rodrigo Ribeiro de Andrade taps the ball on the near side

It’s been a fantastic international season for the home side, with England winning all three of their international matches, culminating in a strong win on Saturday 25 July at Smith’s Lawn in the inaugural Royal Salute Coronation Cup. The day had the potential to be a damp squib for all but, in the end, sunshine won the day, much to the delight of the organisers and 12,000 spectators who had come prepared for a deluge. As lunch came to an end in the HPA and Keith Prowse hospitality marquees, the red military jackets of the Yorkshire Volunteers Regiment brass band could be seen on the pitch as the players prepared for the game. Last year, the double powerhouse that is Facundo Pieres and Adolfo Cambiaso headed up the Argentine side that won 13–8 to England. This year, there was only one Argentine player

on the pitch as South America faced England to determine the fate of the trophy. Making his debut as England Captain in an international at Guards was James Beim (7), alongside Max Charlton (7) – playing as part of Team England for the first time in a Coronation Cup match – and the Tomlinson brothers Luke (7) and Mark (6). Hoping for another win for their continent was opposing team South America, captained by Chilean Jaime García Huidobro (8), and including Brazilians Rodrigo Ribeiro de Andrade (9) and José Klabin (4), and Argentine Manuel Fernández Llorente (8). From the offset, it was the England side dominating the play, with Max Charlton closely marking 9-goaler Andrade with strong ride-offs, and some great penalties converted by Luke Tomlinson. Good teamwork from Mark Tomlinson

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and fantastic attacking play from James Beim pushed the home team’s scoreline ever higher in what was always going to be a difficult game for the opposing side: the South Americans had only recently come together to play as a team in pre-match practices and were still getting to know each other and their borrowed ponies. With gasps from the crowds, and much whirling overhead from the camera drone as it kept up with the action, England found the win, riding off the pitch at the close of play against the backdrop of a Piaget scoreboard that read: England 10, South America 6. HRH The Prince of Wales looked delighted to be presenting the Coronation Cup to new captain James Beim. It’s a match that is of special significance to His Royal Highness, who himself captained England from 1977 to 1993.

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From top The brass band of the Yorkshire Volunteers Regiment; Rodrigo Ribeiro de Andrade on Best Playing Pony Silver Lining

TONY RAMIREZ/IMAGESOFPOLO.COM

Good teamwork and fantastic attacking play pushed England’s score ever higher

Alongside the Coronation Cup, a number of other awards were made, with the Best Playing Pony going to the stunning Silver Lining, a grey US thoroughbred ridden by Rodrigo Andrade and owned by Dato’ Harald Link. In addition, the Gabriel Donoso Trophy was awarded to Rodrigo Ribeiro de Andrade. With huge approval from the crowd, Max Charlton stepped forward to receive the Garrard Most Valuable Player award. Post-match, he told me how much it meant to him to be part of the day: ‘It was fantastic to play an international at my home ground and to win. We played well as a team and it was great to make my debut in an international on the Queen’s Ground at Guards, not only to win but also be awarded MVP. I’ve had some amazing support from my family and many other people – it’s wonderful to have been

chosen and for the Coronation Cup to have received sponsorship from Royal Salute.’ A further award – to a very well-deserving young star of the pitch – was presented to Hugo Lewis, who has enjoyed great success with King Power Foxes this season, although he was not involved in the action on this day. He was announced as the HPA’s Best Young Player of the Year, receiving the Ferguson Trophy, after which he commented: ‘My 2015 season has been an amazing experience. I’ve played with two of the best players in the world on some of the

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best horses in the two biggest tournaments in England. For me, it has been a dream come true. Being a part of King Power, who have such amazing facilities, and playing with the Pieres family, has taught me so much.’ Guy Schwarzenbach and his Black Bears team were presented with the Diamond Jubilee Trophy for winning the How To Spend It British 10-Goal Championship morning match against Gustav Rausing’s Tempest 8–6. The Lycetts Retrained Racehorse award went to Mango, owned by Faisal Al Rifi of the Tempest team.

ACTION EFG BICENTENNIAL CUP, SANDHURST, UK, AUGUST 2015

Cambridge Two’s Alex Rose (in blue) and Rishi Ahluwalia of British Army on the ball

EFG BICENTENNIAL For the third year running, EFG/British Army Select captured the EFG Bicentennial Trophy, held on the Round Ground at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in early August. In glorious sunshine, they defeated Cambridge Select Two. The trophy was first played in 2012 to commemorate two centuries of teaching at Sandhurst and the sport of polo. The current sponsor, global private banking group EFG International, has long been active in supporting polo around the world, in particular by helping with scholarships at the academy, designed for soldiers returning from frontline duty. The Royal Military Academy was founded at Woolwich in 1720, merging in 1947 with what was then known as the Royal Military College Sandhurst. Polo had been introduced there in the 1870s, but fell into abeyance in 1974. It was resurrected in 1998, and today, increasing numbers of officer cadets are learning to play. The four-chukka match for the Bicentennial Trophy saw British Army Select gain a half-goal

in advance. They were led by Robert Mehm, a familiar figure on polo fields around the world. He had recruited 4-goaler Gaston Devrient, who has been the Army polo coach for the past seven years, as well as officer cadet John Sleeman and second lieutenant Paddy Selfe of the King’s Royal Hussars. Cambridge Two were based around former England captain Henry Brett. Rated at 5-goals, at the height of his career he reached 8-goals – the top post-war handicap achieved by a British player. He was joined by Sam Browne and Josh Morris-Lowe, both of whom played for Cambridge last season, and Max Kirchhof. Sleeman opened the account for British Army in the first chukka, answered by Brett with a 30-yard penalty conversion. The second chukka belonged to Mehm, who scored two excellent goals. Brett also scored twice and, at half-time, the Army held a 4½–3 advantage. The end of the third chukka came with the Army still ahead, thanks to Selfe and Mehm.

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In fact, Mehm, having had a tremendous game, went on to score his third field goal. Brett sent through another for Cambridge and, with 10 seconds left, Devrient converted a 60-yard penalty in favour of British Army, retaining their 6½–4 lead going into the fourth chukka. Brett scored one back early on, but it was to be Cambridge’s final goal. Sleeman replied and, on the final bell, the Army rode out the victors, 7½–5. MVP for his handicap was Robert Mehm, with Nick Hine presenting the BPP rug to Gaston Devrient for a horse played in the first chukka. Two special presentations were also made. The first was to Lt Col Dan Rex, marking his retirement after two years as chairman of Sandhurst’s Polo Club, and the second to Col Simon Ledger, director of British Army Polo and commentator since 1987, who had provided his customary erudite commentary during the game. Earlier in the afternoon, Hackett Young Army had ridden to a 7½–3 victory over Cambridge Select One, to carry off the Sandhurst Cup.

SAM CHURCHILL

Dara Williams reports on a lively battle between two historic clubs, as British Army met Cambridge Two at Sandhurst and carried of the commemorative cup

ACTION USPA EAST COAST OPEN, GREENWICH POLO CLUB, CONNECTICUT, USA, AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 2015

EAST COAST OPEN

The defending champions put on a strong performance, reports Alex Webbe, but it was Audi who took the reins in a close-fought match

JOHN FERRIS ROBBEN

Audi’s Nic Roldan (in red) in front of the Brant Foundation Art Study Center

In one of the most exciting USPA East Coast Open finishes in history, Marc Ganzi’s Audi polo team, featuring Ganzi, Juancito Bollini, Nic Roldan and Miguel Novillo Astrada, upset Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm 14–13 in a sudden-death overtime chukka. The final, which took place on 6 September, was broadcast nationally on NBC Sports and live over the internet by ChukkerTV. Six teams rated from 17 to 20 goals showed up at the Greenwich Polo Club this summer to compete. Players ranged in age from White Birch’s 14-year-old Santino Magrini to the 70-year-old former 6-goaler and captain of the Airstream team, Peter Orthwein. Defending champions White Birch Farm, which consisted of Peter Brant, Mariano Aguerre, Hilario Ulloa and Magrini, showed early strength, beating McLaren 16–12 and Airstream 11–10. Talented 9-goaler Ulloa was averaging more than eight goals per game for the home side. Meanwhile, Audi racked up wins over Turkish Airlines (14–9) and KIG (11–6) before being humbled by White Birch 13–9 in preliminary play. Going into the semi-finals, White Birch went on

to comfortably dispatch KIG 11–7, while Audi beat Airstream 14–10. The rematch was on: White Birch needed just one more win (over a team they’d previously beaten by four goals) to capture their 12th East Coast Open title. White Birch struck first, but Audi responded with a pair of goals from Astrada and left the field after the opening chukka with a 2–1 advantage. White Birch fought in the second period, and outscored Audi 5–2 to take the lead 6–4. Nineteen-year-old Bollini had the daunting task of taking on Ulloa, while Audi captain Ganzi was the ideal team player, assuming a defensive role when called on and pressuring White Birch players into fouling at inopportune times. American 8-goaler Roldan was everywhere as he and Astrada played seamlessly alongside one another. White Birch weren’t sitting idly by, however. Ulloa continued to score from the field and the penalty line while playing under the direction of former 10-goaler Aguerre. Santino Magrini, son of former 10-goaler Matias, played well beyond his years, while the veteran Brant, a former 7-goaler himself, held down the back position. The team had been together throughout the

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whole summer, and as a unit remained unbeaten in three major contests. Audi were forced to change their line-up just before the tournament due to an injury and drafted in Astrada from Argentina and Bollini from Aspen in order to compete. The chemistry worked. Trailing through much of the game, the team stayed close on the heels of the powerful White Birch machine, tying the game in the fifth chukka and then again in the sixth to push the two teams into sudden-death overtime. After a brief intermission, both teams returned to the field with fresh mounts to continue the struggle. White Birch were on the attack when Audi reversed the field on them. Ganzi took the ball and passed it ahead to Roldan, who carried it to score the winning goal in the first minute of overtime and take the trophy 14–13. Audi had beaten the invincible White Birch on their home turf. Astrada scored 10 goals for the Audi win, earning MVP honours. Roldan added three and Ganzi scored once, while Ulloa scored 10 for White Birch. Brant, Aguerre and Magrini each added single goals in the loss. Aguerre’s Machitos Avispa was named BPP.

ACTION UK KIDS’ POLO TOUR 2015, BERKSHIRE, UK, JUNE 2015

UK KIDS’ TOUR

While many 10-, 9- and 8-goal polo-playing fathers were setting their sights on the goalposts of Berkshire’s high-goal pitches during this season’s Cartier Queen’s Cup, their children and those of a number of other players strove equally hard and with as much determination to win their own matches in the first UK Kids’ Polo Tour. The brainchild of Marianela Castagnola, the inaugural excursion brought together 40 children between the ages of five and 18, of different nationalities and polo backgrounds, to compete against each other on several high-goal pitches, such as Billingbear Park and Dubai. Castagnola’s passion for the sport is evident as she explains her inspiration for the event: ‘I wanted to do something for all the kids who follow their parents from Argentina for the polo season in England, as well as the young players based there, some of whose parents play and

some don’t. The idea was to get them together to play in an all-inclusive tournament, for which we were given access to high-goal fields by a number of generous patrons. Many of the UK-based kids have a busy academic schedule but love polo, and I wanted to give them the chance to meet young players from Argentina who are here for only a few months.’ It was fantastic to see the enthusiasm and skills of all those who took to the pitches in their bespoke replica high-goal shirts supplied by the Printing Boutique. There were many familiar surnames among the line-up, including Hines, Di Paolas, Cambiaso, Sund, Harper and Heguy. Sportsmanship was a key aspect, and awards were presented to those who played fairly – a huge part of the game. The finals took place in Dubai, with coaching and guidance offered by a number of well-known

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players who are more often seen beneath a hat with a stick aloft rather than pitch-side clutching a handful of spares. The 9-to-14-year-olds category final was played between UAE and Thai Polo and went to an extra chukka, with Thai Polo victorious, 5–4. MVP went to Mia Cambiaso and the Polofix Best Playing Pony to her pony, Ivana. Dubai took on Tashan in the nail-biting final of the 15-to-18-year-olds category, in which the unstoppable Tashan team, in their orange and brown shirts, won 10–2. Nine-year-old Benjamin Quiroga’s pony Dona Pepa won the Thai Polo Best Playing Pony. Three teams – King Power, King Power Foxes and Longdole – battled it out in the subsidiary final of the 9-to-14-year-olds category. After six rapid-fire chukkas, it was Longdole who rode off the pitch victorious, with Eric Appen’s mare Chilli winning the Polofix Best Playing Pony

AMRITA BILIMORIA

The inaugural event saw some of polo’s brightest rising stars – including a few famous surnames – battle it out for the sought-after trophies, reports Victoria Elsbury-Legg

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Opposite Thai Polo and UAE fnalists line up with (from left) Dato’ Harald Link, Andrew Hine, Marianela Castagnola and Adolfo Cambiaso Right Adolfo Cambiaso Jr and Luke Wiles run to goal

award. One of the sweetest moments of the day had to be when the under-nines took to the pitch on their mini mounts under the watchful eye of the professionals. The triumphant winners of this section were the Sifani team, comprising Suleymann Noordeen, Rufino Merlos and Leopold Hiller, and captained by pro Agustin Merlos. Salkeld finished second, followed by Apes Hill and HB Polo. There was a happy smile on the face of each of the participants, who received some fantastic prizes kindly donated by sponsors ONA, Tally Ho Farm and Glitterati Polo, with Floris gift sets for the professionals. With the determination and dedication of Marianela Castagnola (assisted by Georgina Le Seelleur French) behind this amazing event, there is little doubt that it is set to grow. The tournament is vital in helping the development of junior polo, and is likely to become a permanent fixture on the UK sporting calendar.

ACTION LA PALMERAIE POLO CLUB, MOROCCO, AUGUST 2015

MOROCCO

La Palmeraie Polo Club is 35km outside Tangier, in the north of Morocco. It is approached by a dirt road that meanders over two valleys through the Moroccan countryside and crests with a spectacular view of three world-class polo fields set against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean. Founder Patrick Guerrand-Hermès’ vision of a competitive polo club in Morocco has been realised after years of planning. In mid August, the club’s first official polo tournament, a 6–8 goal challenge, was played over a period of 10 days. The players and their families lived in a tented village of more than 20 colourful tents carpeted with Moroccan rugs and lit in the evening by torches and lanterns. As part of this unique experience, lunch was served daily at a private club accessed by quad bikes and set in a pristine setting of wide sandy beaches, punctuated only by local boys racing their ponies in the surf. The matches were played in the mornings and late afternoons, on fields that were kept in top condition by traditionally dressed local Berber women, who seemed to have developed an appreciation for the sport and who were to be found cheering from the sidelines at the spectacular closing celebrations.

Seven teams participated overall, with players from the UK, the USA, Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands, Argentina and, of course, Morocco. Each team played three league matches of four chukkas, which led to a semi-final and a final. The league games were played on two of the club’s three truly excellent fields, with Pacha – the main ocean-front field – reserved for the final.

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The Patrick Guerrand-Hermès breed supplied 40 of the 42 horses for the visiting teams, while the Spanish and Moroccan teams arrived with their own horses. Many of the Moroccan horses were also from the Hermès breed. The games were fast and competitive, with evenly balanced teams, ensuring many of the results were too close to call.

LUCIA HALABICOVA -PGH LA PALMERAIE MOROCCO

The inaugural tournament at a club born of its founder’s passion for the sport saw superb polo played against a wonderful backdrop, writes Melanie Vere Nicoll

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This will undoubtedly be a club on which to keep an eye in the coming years

Opposite, from top Douglas Val de Vie vs Garde Royale; local Berber women treading in This page Garde Royale player, Sidi M Elmhamdi, on the ball

Two father-and-son teams met in the final on 16 August, with Alejandro Aznar playing for Marques de Riscal with his son Luis, and Roderick and Elias Vere Nicoll in the team for Hurlingham Media. With a final score of 8–3½, it was Marques de Riscal who took the trophy. The other teams competing were Douglas Val de Vie, Garde Royale, CIBAO La Pampa and Jumenterie Garde Royale. While the standard of polo was truly excellent, it was the friendly, festive atmosphere that really stole the show. It is challenging to reconcile the untouched beauty of the Moroccan landscape with the club’s proximity to Europe – so close that many of the spectators attending the final came over from Spain. The sensitive treatment of the land by Guerrand-Hermès is reflected in every aspect of La Palmeraie, making it unique in both its setting and its standards. This will undoubtedly be a club on which to keep an eye in the coming years.

ACTION CHESTERTONS POLO IN THE PARK, HURLINGHAM PARK, LONDON, UK, JUNE 2015

POLO IN THE PARK

Beautiful weather, record crowds and a historic test match were just some of the highlights of this year’s event, reports Jack Hamshaw

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GEORGE POWELL; POLO IN THE PARK

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On Sunday 7 June, Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Team Hong Kong claimed their first Chestertons Polo in the Park title at Hurlingham Park, capping off a memorable three days. Founded in 2008, Polo in the Park is now in its seventh year, and 2015’s event saw record crowds enjoy high-octane polo, with teams from Lagos, Davos, Dublin, London, Hong Kong, as well as defending champions Abu Dhabi, all in attendance. The big draw of this year’s event had to be the much-anticipated international match between England and South America on Friday 5 June. Hurlingham Park is the ‘spiritual home’ of English polo, but this was the first international polo match to be played there since 1939. With current international captain James Beim captaining the England side, the expectant crowd was glued to the action. As the two teams rode out on to the sun-drenched pitch, the noise crescendoed as history was made. South America enjoyed the best of the early exchanges as they adjusted more quickly to the adapted City Polo rules. On a smaller field than is used for regular polo, the players on both sides were able to showcase their intricate skills, and it was this that led to South America’s first goal from team captain Rodrigo Rueda. Neither side gave an inch as the shadows lengthened at Hurlingham Park. After Rueda manfully got back in the saddle having hit the ground, Guillermo Terrera scored a decisive two-point goal to give his side a crucial lead, and the game ended in a 6–4 win for South America. The Olympic trophy created for the 1939 match was presented to the winning captain. Reflecting on the historic international match, England’s Tom Morley said: ‘They scored a couple of double pointers that made the difference in the game. The crowd was amazing, and it was really good fun to play in front of so many people. It has been awesome to be a part of history, bringing international polo back to Hurlingham.’ The tournament’s opening round of matches also got underway on Friday 5 June, with Powder Byrne Team Dublin facing Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park Team Hong Kong, Argentex Team Davos taking on Shoreline Team Lagos, and Mint Team London facing City AM Team Abu Dhabi. It was fitting that one of Britain’s top players, 7-goaler Max Charlton, opened the scoring with a two-point goal for Hong Kong. Charlton led from the front in a gripping 5–5 draw, and what would be a dress rehearsal for the final. ‘The atmosphere has been amazing,’ said Charlton. ‘Playing in my home city couldn’t be better. I’m also very lucky to be playing with two great players, Jamie Morrison and Charlie Wooldridge.’ Elsewhere on day one, Dillon Bacon and Oscar Mancini gave Davos a comfortable victory, and last year’s champions, Abu Dhabi, proved too skilful for London as they rounded off the day with a comfortable 7–4 win. Ladies Day saw a sell-out crowd pack into the picturesque south-west London ground as the second day of action got underway. The highlight was undoubtedly USA polo legend

It was awesome to be a part of history, bringing international polo back to Hurlingham

Nic Roldan (8) making his Polo in the Park debut for Davos. Unfortunately, due to the sweltering conditions, he was unable to help Davos add to their opening-day victory as they succumbed to the highly impressive Hong Kong team. Roldan remarked: ‘I’ve never played in an event with so many people watching. The crowd was going nuts out there and I really enjoyed playing this format of polo.’ The final was a re-match between Dublin and Hong Kong. The game started at breakneck speed, with Dublin getting the better of the early exchanges as Sebastian Dawnay and Patrick Ephson both converted two-point penalties to give their side a 7–2 lead after two chukkas.

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Opposite South America vs England in the eagerly anticipated opening match Opposite, top right Hong Kong lift the trophy Above Hong Kong triumph over Dublin in the fnal – Max Charlton on the ball

Hong Kong refused to lie down, and after a clever pass off the barriers from Jamie Morrison, Max Charlton scored a spectacular two-point goal to reduce the arrears. The wind was then firmly in his team’s sails as he scored yet another double pointer to give Hong Kong a 9–7 lead. Richard Le Poer looked to have given Dublin a chance of snatching victory, but Charlton showed his international pedigree as he sealed Hong Kong’s first Chestertons Polo in the Park title, with a final score of 10–8. Gérard Sintès, general manager of Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park, said: ‘It feels great to be part of the winning side. It was a fantastic match, very tight, but we won in the end and we are delighted. The event was amazing and everybody had such a wonderful time. Congratulations to the whole Chestertons team and all the sponsors.’

ACTION RICHARD MILLE TROPHY – CÔTE D’AZUR CUP, SAINT-TROPEZ POLO CLUB, GASSIN, FRANCE, AUGUST 2015

CÔTE D’AZUR CUP

In its frst 18-goal tournament, the newly expanded Saint-Tropez Polo Club saw action from world-class players such as the Pieres brothers, reports Victoria Elsbury-Legg

It was a first for the Saint-Tropez Polo Club this August when they hosted the inaugural 18-goal Richard Mille Trophy – Côte d’Azur Cup. Situated in a stunning location, among the forests of the South of France, the club has now become an even more desirable polo destination – because club president Corinne Schuler last year struck up a partnership with Alshair Fiyaz to redesign the grounds, with the aim of making the SaintTropez Polo Club ‘a unique setting where polo is played at its finest’. The result is a perfect location for mediumand high-goal tournaments, with a backdrop of beautiful beaches, top restaurants and nightlife. The reconstruction was headed up by Justin Gaunt, the club’s general manager, and saw two new Tifton polo fields added to the club’s original

two, along with a practice pitch and 360m training track (made from a mixture of sand, cotton fibres and latex, to provide a firm, flexible year-round surface). Alongside this, work has taken place to build an indoor air-conditioned school as well as 268 Loddon stables made from compressed bamboo and special rubber flooring. Each features a specially constructed roof that direct rainwater into a huge reservoir hidden beneath the stables to be recycled for irrigation. Players and grooms have not been forgotten, with 19 apartments incorporating 33 rooms built for grooms and 11 luxury villas for players. For the 2016 season, further facilities will be added: a 1,350sq m clubhouse with changing rooms, saunas and steam rooms; an events hall; and a kitchen – and, of course, a cinema.

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Lining up for this season’s Côte d’Azur Cup, played from 6 to 16 August, were teams featuring some of the top international players, including the Pieres brothers Facundo and Gonzalito, fresh from their success in the 2015 English high-goal season as winners of the Queen’s Cup and the Jaeger-LeCoultre British Gold Cup (and, in Facundo’s case, a few weeks’ holiday). The duo took to the pitches of Saint-Tropez in opposing teams, Gonzalito (10) as part of Hanspeter Spek’s La Concepcion, which also included Diego Braun (4) and Matias Nigoul (4). Facundo (10) joined patron Alshair Fiyaz (0) in his F Polo Team, along with Marcos Harriott (0) and Lucas James (8). Joining these two teams on the pitches were Ferne Park, Composite Works, Saint-Tropez and La Quinta.

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From top MVP Gonzalito Pieres of La Concepcion in front of Ferne Park’s Dirk Gould; Saint-Tropez’s Lucas James (left) and Facundo Pieres eye the ball

With strong play from Ferne Park, there was little La Concepcion could do

LEON ALLEN

Play opened on 7 August between La Concepcion and Saint-Tropez, with the unstoppable Facundo leading Spek’s team to a 7–5½ win. Meeting each other on 12 August, Piaget brand ambassadors Gonzalito and Facundo Pieres took the game to just a goal difference – with Gonzalito finding the all-important winning shot for La Concepcion to beat F Polo Team 9–8. Eight further league matches followed, resulting in Jonathan Rothermere’s Ferne Park heading into the finals on 16 August to face La Concepcion, who had maintained their winning streak. Places for subsidiary finalists were decided by a penalty shoot-out on 15 August, which resulted in Saint-Tropez being placed first, La Quinta second and F Polo Team third. Sadly, rain stopped play in the subsidiary finals between fifth- and sixth-placed teams F Polo Team and Composite Works, with players calling it a day at 6–3½. In Sunday morning’s subsidiary finals (between the third- and fourth-placed teams), La Quinta triumphed over Saint-Tropez, with a final score of 8–4. So, at 5pm, it was time to begin the final of this thrilling 15–18-goal tournament. With much strong play from Ferne Park and some excellent goals by Joaquin Pittaluga, at the start of the third chukka Rothermere’s team were leading 5–2. There seemed to be little La Concepcion could do as by the fifth chukka, Ferne Park were 7–6 up. Led by Pittaluga, their top scorer, they dominated the match, finding three further goals and going on to win 10–6. Most Valuable Player was awarded to Gonzalito Pieres and Best Playing Pony to Carpeta, owned by Joaquin Pittaluga. In the final of the 10-goal cup, Sezz, made up of Shahé Kalaidjian (0), Louis Jarrige (1), Santiago Zubiaurre (4) and Marcelo Amadeo y Videla (5), played Los Lobos, which consisted of Sebastian Le Page (-1), Martin Podesta Jr (3), Martin Podesta (4) and Luis Benmergui (3). Sezz were the winners, 10–3½. Los Lobos’s Amadeo y Videla was named MVP, while Cigarro, ridden by Zubiaurre, took BPP honours. Players and spectators enjoyed post-match VIP cocktails and cuisine by chef Jérôme Venturi in the club lounge to the tunes of resident DJ Tony ‘Eden Beach’ Alones.

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ACTION 44TH INTERNATIONAL POLO TOURNAMENT, SANTA MARÍA POLO CLUB, SOTOGRANDE, SPAIN, AUGUST 2015

SOTOGRANDE SEASON

This year saw some changes to the structure of tournaments at Santa María Polo Club. The Bronze Cup became a subsidiary to the Silver, meaning no team could win all three trophies, thereby putting an end to the Spanish Triple Crown. There were notably fewer teams than the record-breaking numbers of 2014, with only eight high-goal sides compared to last year’s 12, and six medium-goal teams instead of the previous 14. The grounds at Los Pinos had been further developed, with new food trucks and shops and, for the first time, spectators were allowed to cross the field between chukkas. Rashid Al Bwardy’s Dubai team were the unstoppable force of the Sotogrande high-goal with the driving force of the world’s number one, Adolfo Cambiaso (10) (above, in green), and teammates Alejo Taranco (6) and Martín Valent (4) winning all their games in the Spanish tournaments. They met Victor Vargas’s Lechuza

Caracas with Juan Martín Nero (10) (above, in blue), José Donoso (5) and Julián de Lusarreta (6) in both the Silver and Gold Cup finals and emerged as the undefeated champions. The Gold Cup final was a particularly thrilling game, as Lechuza Caracas arrived on the field with improved strategies to scupper the Dubai team’s advances, resulting in a gripping match at Los Pinos. It was neck-and-neck during the first five chukkas, but Nero and his teammates couldn’t hold out to Al Bwardy’s goal-scoring abilities and the relentless fieldwork of Taranco and Valent. In the sixth chukka, Cambiaso took his team to a three-goal lead. De Lusarreta responded with a goal for Lechuza in the last few seconds of the game, but Dubai had already clinched the win, and the final score for the most important trophy in continental Europe stood at 12–10. Juan Martín Nero won the MVP of the tournament and his horse, Yun Yun, BPP.

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French team Sainte Mesme, comprising father and son Birger (1) and Robert Strom (3), Pelayo Berazadi (4) and Clemente Zavaleta (6), won the medium-goal Valecuatro Gold Cup in a close final against Golden Goose that went to overtime, with Spanish pro Berazadi scoring the golden shot. In the low-goal tournament, Valdeparras Lynx featured another father-and-son combination, Jaime (1) and Yago Espinosa de los Monteros (2), playing alongside Fernando Primo de Rivera (1) and Gastón Bardengo (2). They beat Chris and Clare Mathias’s team, La Clarita, to win. Among the Spanish handicap changes for 2016, patrons Iñigo Zobel, Ludovic Pailloncy and Craig McKinney saw their handicaps reduce by one, while those of Martín Valent, Clemente Zavaleta, Robert Strom and Kian Hall rose by one. Meanwhile, Cambiaso’s children, Mia and Adolfo Jr, who had been playing in the local children’s tournaments, both rose from -1 to 0.

CAMILLA SYKES

Despite a reduced number of teams taking part, top players battled it out in Sotogrande for the three cups, reports Camilla Sykes

ACTION POLO BY THE SEA, GOLD COAST, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA, 13 JUNE 2015

POLO BY THE SEA

JOE M c INALLY

The Queensland instalment of Polo by the Sea saw some fne teams battle it out for victory in front of a celebrity crowd, reports Andrew Benke

The home of Australia’s Warner Bros Movie World theme park and the Village Roadshow studios, the Gold Coast plays a key role in the film industry. Many a Hollywood production is made here, including a number with an equine component, providing a steady supply of ‘extras’ work off-season for polo players. Together with year-round fine weather, this makes Queensland a convenient base for the polo fraternity. Unsurprisingly, movie stars tend to be on the guest list for the annual Polo by the Sea tournament, staged only a few hundred metres from the studios, and the event has long been a magnet for celebrities, VIPs and royalty. Over the years, it has attracted the likes of Maharaja Raghav Raj Singh, John Bertrand – who captained Australia II when the yacht famously snatched victory from the long-dominant US team at the America’s Cup in 1983 – and Ministry of Sound Australia DJ sensations The Twins, who are keen horse fans.

The 2015 tournament, the third such event, secured a record attendance, when the opening pro-am game witnessed a clash between French clothing brand sponsored Team Vicomte A and Team Halifax. As the reigning champions from the previous year, the pressure was on Halifax from the beginning, and they rose to the occasion. The combination of Matthew Barnett and Drew Slack-Smith proved too strong for Vicomte A, who yielded to the superior firing power of their opponents. In a deciding penalty shoot-out, they went down 7-6, with Barnett nailing the deciding goal. The feature National Polo League game was a repeat clash between the Melbourne and Gold Coast teams, sponsored by Gold Coast Cabs. The taxi app Uber has certainly shaken up the personal-transport industry across the world, yielding better service and standards from the industry as a result of the competition, and an unexpected perk of this is that promotional

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Warwick Steen (in green) and Brendan Menegazzo eye the ball

dollars are funnelling through into even the world of polo as companies fight for market share. In this instance, Gold Coast Cabs was rewarded for its efforts, with the home team snatching victory from Melbourne with a 10-7 win. The next instalment of Polo by the Sea will be played in January, at Sydney’s Palm Beach. It will be an epic international clash between Team London, including patron Peter Saville, Johnny Good and Tarquin Southwell, and reigning champions Gold Coast, which will again be headed by Lucas Rogers and Brendan Menegazzo. The match will serve to launch the World Series Polo circuit being developed by the Urban Polo Association, which pitches international teams against each other in tournaments played in venues across the globe.

Autumn 2015

Articles inside

Fame and the game

Fit for a king

Screen play

The Coronel Suárez story

Level playing feld

Ponylines

Héctor Martelli

Rain started play

Lifestyle

Quick on the draw

Sweet reunion

Pitch perfect