High goal ex The world’s biggest new polo club in almost three decades has six tournaments at the top end of the sport, contested by teams with superstar line-ups. Herbert Spencer takes a seat at the International Polo Club Palm Beach lorida’s Gold Coast has been the winter playground of wealthy Americans since the 1890s when oil magnate Henry M. Flager first developed Palm Beach as the ‘American Riviera’. Then, in the first half of the 20th century, polo was added to the coast’s attractions of beaches, balmy weather and high society. All of American polo's great and good flocked to Palm Beach County between the wars, including newspaper publisher John Hay ‘Jock’ Whitney who piloted his yellow Sikorsky amphibian Pegasus to fly down from New York for winter polo. The oldest Gold
F
Main picture: Action from the US Open final between White Birch and Skeeterville, with the impressive new stand in the background. Right: Skeeterville's Owen Rinehart hooks White Birch's Julio Gracida during the final's sudden-death chukka
Coast club still in existence is Gulfstream (1923), once high goal but now playing at lower levels. Two great high goal centres were established after the war, Royal Palm Polo and Sports Club in Boca Raton in 1968 and Palm Beach Polo and Country Club (PBPCC) in 1978. Now the centre of attraction is International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPCPB), established last year after high goal team patrons got fed up with PBPCC. under its new management. IPCPB is the first club of its size to be founded anywhere in the world in almost three decades and the polo scene there is beyond compare. This year, IPCPB had three 22-goal and three 26-goal
48 Hurlingham
48-50. Florida.indd Sec1:48
29/4/05 9:52:18 am
