news… gossip… opinion… Polo is a sport on which people get hooked. Some players’ current and deposit accounts are emptied and the summer escape for their wives or girlfriends becomes a distant memory, replaced by hours on the side of a windswept ground, unable to depart from a specific spot in case a new 52 [stick] is needed. During the drive home, a player’s companion says little. The game was muddled and dull. Her husband was often in the wrong place and when he was in the right place, he missed the ball or fouled. He is full of chat, how well his ponies went, how bad the umpiring was and how his team should have won. He is brimming with passion and already planning the next game. It was this passion and commitment to the sport that led Roderick Vere Nicoll (a player who of course does not ever foul or miss the
ball) to put together a team to produce this magazine for members of the HPA and polo players worldwide. I hope you will enjoy it and, more important, I hope you will provide plenty of feedback to Hurlingham Media. As the game expands, new problems arise but it is interesting to note – when looking back through the minutes – how many of the old chestnuts remain scattered on the ground before us. These are just some of the ongoing challenges: The late Lord Mountbatten tried to produce a set of International Rules for polo back in 1938. We have still failed to achieve one set which is accepted by everybody for international matches. Accurate handicapping is crucial for a fair competitive match, but to divide nearly 3,000 UK players into 12 different levels is not easy. At the lower end, the difference in standard between a good 0 and a bad 0 can be huge. A proposal to introduce handicaps from 0 to 20 has, to date, been resolutely opposed by the Argentine Polo Association. The historic status of reaching 10 goals is well established and of course the problem is not at the top level. An increasing number of individuals do improve between seasons by playing overseas. The old
custom whereby handicaps from the previous season are unlikely to be changed until the end of the next season has already been modified here and in the United States but, if teams are to be fairly handicapped, the Handicap Committee must adopt a flexible and rapid response. This in turn places a considerable onus on the members of the Handicap Committee who are unpaid, mostly very busy, and sometimes have a conflict of interest and thus cannot vote. In this country, polo is a pro-am sport. It is one of the few where the person funding the team can actually take part. This is one of its great strengths but also one of its limitations in that it is reliant on individuals with no interest in any financial return. This means there is no real incentive to attract prize money. It is the patrons who lay the golden egg for the clubs and the professional players. Most accept any conditions placed upon them with good grace, as part of the game, but many feel that they should be given greater freedom of choice in the make up of their teams. Linked to the above is the question of how the HPA should look after the interests of the English players. There are strong views held by all parties. But polo is no different
SOUND THE TRUMPETS
HERBERT SPENCER
Mighty things from small beginnings grow, as Dryden liked to say, and one fine example of this must be the Guards Polo Club. It is difficult to believe that a mere 50 years ago one of the world’s leading clubs consisted of nothing more than two grounds, 20 or so members and a small canvas tent for Pimms and tea. The 50th anniversary celebrations were launched towards the end of April with a grand ball at a convenient venue just up the road. The Windsor Castle ball was hosted by the club’s president and his wife, who happen also to live in the castle much of the year. Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh are popular hosts and the £1,000 tickets were sold out within days. Disappointed members will still have the chance to rub shoulders with the monarch and her consort when the club throws an anniversary bash beside the Queens Ground at Smith’s Lawn in Windsor Great Park on June 12, with room for 4,000 in a marquee. For this event, tickets are a modest £50, available only to the more than 1,000 playing and social members of Guards but with many of English polo’s good and great invited. Guards is also the host club for the Hurlingham Polo Association’s flagship Cartier International Day, an annual event that attracts upwards of 20,000 spectators and has become a landmark of the English season. This is the world’s biggest one-day polo event and takes place on July 24 this year, with the Queen expected to preside. After the festivities are over, says Guards chairman Paul Belcher, ‘we will be starting our second half-century with major developments: a new £1.5million clubhouse, two new high-goal grounds and a polo arena at Flemish Farm and the rebuilding of several grounds at Smiths Lawn. This will give us a total of 10 tournament grounds at the two locations.’ Sound the trumpets, as Dryden also liked to say.
Jose Donoso, Alejandro Vial and Henry Brett in action at the 2004 Cartier International
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