Ponylines

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 memor y, replaced by hours on the side of a windswept ground, unable to depart from a specifi c spot in case a new 52 [stick] is needed.

During the drive home, a player’s companion says little. e 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. ese are just some of the ongoing challenges: e 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 diff erent levels is not easy. At the lower end, the diff erence 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. e 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. e old custom whereby handicaps from the previous season are unlikely to be changed until the end of the next season has already been modifi ed here and in the United States but, if teams are to be fairly handicapped, the Handicap Committee must adopt a fl exible and rapid response. is in turn places a considerable onus on the members of the Handicap Committee who are unpaid, mostly very busy, and sometimes have a confl ict 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. is is one of its great strengths but also one of its limitations in that it is reliant on individuals with no interest in any fi nancial return. is 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. ere are strong views held by all parties. But polo is no diff erent

SOUND THE TRUMPETS

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 fl agship 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

…from the ponylines

to any other sport. To be successful, you have to be hugely talented but also totally committed and dedicated. e patron expects to employ a professional who is just that, but sometimes the patron has been disappointed and the image of the English professional has been severely damaged. Tim Henman will probably have been practising his serve for two hours and Tiger Woods will almost certainly have hit over a 1,000 balls down the driving range before some polo professionals have even got out of bed – and both those individuals already have healthy bank accounts. ere is much talk of a level playing fi eld, but polo has become a global business and a player has to be able to compete and win in the global market if he is to enjoy sustainable long term success. Players have to market themselves as a value for money resource and the image of the English professional needs a makeover.

We live in a world of increasing bureaucracy. People are frightened of accidents, not because of the injury that they may receive or accidentally infl ict but because of the danger that they might be sued. e Health and Safety Executive seems content to increase the burdens on organisations with little regard to the cost. e tentacles of the EU spread ominously into unexpected areas. It is becoming increasingly diffi cult to play any game with one’s friends just for fun e imposition of increasing bureaucracy drives a wedge between those who are responsible for making sure that the rules and laws are passed on and those who actually have to implement them.

Issues such as these tend to be problems but there is also much that is positive. Polo is expanding in every respect – clubs, private grounds, members, schools, Pony Club teams and sponsorship. e press coverage last year of polo was the most extensive it has been for a long time. e choice of players for a 24 Goal England team is extensive and the competition fi erce. e target in the next three years is to produce not only a 30 goal team but a 30 goal team for which there is genuine choice and competition.

Let us look forward to an exciting new season. And let’s all work together to make sure that polo itself takes some giant strides forward this summer.

David Woodd Chief Executive Hurlingham Polo Association

Olympian heights

From Dark Side Of The Moon to polo under the bright lights of Olympia in central London might seem an unlikely rite of passage, but that’s what is happening later this year. Bryan Morrison, who promoted the likes of Pink Floyd, the Bee Gees, Wham!, The Jam, and George Michael and once fi lled the Royal Albert Hall for a fashion show with leading socialites as the models, is taking polo to the people of the big smoke with an England v USA match in the exhibition centre famous for its horse shows. Morrison, who is owner of Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club and chairman of the HPA’s Arena Polo Committee, confi rms: “We’ll have the top high-goal arena professionals from both sides of the Atlantic battling it out. It will be a great showcase for

polo. So many Londoners have never seen a match and don’t realise what a tough and exciting sport it is.” Talking of bringing the king of games to new and unfamiliar places, Yorkshire’s horse-loving public received an introduction to the sport this month when Beverley Polo Club staged two exhibitions of three-man arena polo at the British Open Show Championships in Sheffi eld. Yorkshire is traditionally big hunting country, but most of the captive audience gathered for the jumping competition was getting its fi rst look at the toughest of all horse sports. Londoners may be a greater challenge but if any man can fi ll the 7,500 seats at Olympia Bryan Morrison and on December 20, his wife Greta that man is Bryan Morrison. Where are you, Harvey?

“The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with fi rmness, can be trained to do most things” once famously wrote our English national treasure, author Jilly Cooper. Unfortunately this has turned out not to be the case in her latest business venture. The novelist, who writes all her books on a manual typewriter called Monica and hates to be described as the author of ‘bonkbusters’, was delighted when Sir David Frost and a production company in which he has a stake bought the fi lm rights to her steamy – not a ‘bonk-buster’ – novel Polo. Now, however, to Jilly’s disappointment, the project looks doomed following the collapse of the production company. She is searching for a more reliable backer. Come in Harvey Weinstein. Jilly plays down the idea that supermodels Kate Moss, above right, and polo-playing Jodie Kidd, above left, were offered roles. “Kate had lunch with the producer, that’s as far as it went,” she says. “She and Jodie might be decorative as misbehaving polo wives or groupies, but the real question is who would be best for the lead role of Ricky, the hero, a complex and tortured polo player.” Suggestions on a postcard, please.

Chukkas for charity

Princes William and Harry made an early start to the Windsors’ annual season of charity exhibition matches when they helped raise close to £40,000 for the posttsunami regeneration programme, playing in the arena at Longdole in Gloucestershire, new club of HPA chairman Christopher Hanbury. Robert ffrench-Blake, Extra-Equerry to the Prince of Wales who manages polo for the prince, said the event was all the idea of William and Harry and their grooms. “We’ve had great fun”, William said. “This is a very worthwhile cause and we are just pleased we can do something to help.” Scoreline: Harry’s team 12, William’s 7. From May through July, according to ffrench-Blake, the royals will be playing around 18 charity matches at several polo clubs or private grounds around the country. The fi rst, after the highly successful fund-raiser at Longdole, will be for the Kuoni World Cup in aid of the Prince’s of Wales Initiative in India at Hurtwood Park

Polo Club on May 29. During the season Prince Charles will be joined on occasion by one or both of his sons; Harry’s participation will depend upon his schedule as a new cadet at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Last season the Windsors’ polo helped to raise upwards of £950,000 for some 30 charities, chosen by Prince Charles from amongst the hundreds of which he is president or patron. Over the years Prince Charles’s charity matches at home and abroad have raised tens of millions of pounds for a wide Prince William, left and Prince Harry variety of good causes, ranging from a small hospice in Wales to helping to save the black rhino in Africa. His charity polo activities started more than 30 years ago when he was a regular competitor and have continued unabated after a bad back forced his retirement from tournament play in 1992. William and Harry began joining their father in charity exhibition matches soon after they took up the ‘game of kings’ in 1998.

Bang on

Polo-playing drummer Kenney Jones showed where his heart really lies when he scheduled dates for the coast-to-coast USA tour of his group, The Jones Gang, so he can be back home to play with the Prince of Wales in a celebrity charity match in aid of The Prince’s Trust. Kenney, (below, with his wife Jayne) will jet in from the States in time for the May 29 event, grandly titled the Kuoni World Cup, at his Hurtwood Park Polo Club in Surrey. Line-ups for the match traditional patron-sponsored polo will continue to fl ourish, we believe that a new audience can be attracted to watching the sport at a high professional level.” The BPE teams, handicapped around 24-26 goals, have a large proportion of homegrown British pros. They are funded by corporate sponsors rather than playing patrons with low handicaps. The organisation is planning for fi ve teams in 2005 – each bearing the name of a country – playing league matches at Coworth Park during the week starting July 25 with the fi nals on July 31. Public admission is only £5, but BPE is also offering VIP hospitality packages at up to £299, with lunch catered for by TV chef Ross Burden, plus an Argentine barbecue in the evening.

include the prince, Kenney and his 16-year old son Jay; fellow musician Mike Rutherford of Mike And The Mechanics and Genesis fame and his son Tom; American Hart To Hart star Stephanie Powers; and Howard Smith, son of Hurtwood Park polo manager, George. Look for a clutch of Kenney’s fellow music-world chums in the marquee.

Rain stops play

A record must have been set for tournament polo this winter in California’s Cochinella Valley. Rare downpours in a region of the world where it usually takes megatons of imported water to make the desert bloom around Palm Springs played havoc with the schedule this winter at Eldorado Polo Club, the largest in North America. ‘There’s been nothing like it for more than a decade,’ said Eldorado’s veteran polo manager Susan Stovall. ‘We lost a good seven days of play and had to use one of our practice grounds as a track to exercise the 1,200 ponies stuck in the mud of corrals and roads.’ To catch up after the rain fi nally stopped and the turf dried out, Susan ran a staggering 43 tournament matches in one single weekend on Eldorado’s 12 grounds. Does anyone know of a higher weekend count? Watch this space

Polo has long been the Cinderella of horse sports on TV but it seems to have found a Prince Charming in Nigel a’ Brassard, director of British Polo Enterprises (BPE). According to Nigel’s carefully researched fi gures, BPE gained a television audience of 2.5million for its fi rst all-professional British Polo Championship, sponsored by Netjets, at Coworth Park Polo Club in 2004. He thinks this is a world record and is looking to attract even more viewers for the tournament this summer. ‘We believe the sport is at a watershed,’ Nigel said. ‘While Going Dutch

Some ten teams are expected to contest the European Eight-goal Championship of the Federation of International Polo (FIP) in the Netherlands in September. The sport is now played throughout Europe, from Ireland to Greece and Finland to Portugal. Meanwhile, the Federation is deciding the venue for its 2007 World Cup during its Council of Administration meeting in Sotogrande in May. Nations bidding to hold the VIIIth World Championship include Spain, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and, it is reported, Argentina. FIP offi cials have been globetrotting to inspect the candidates’ facilities.

Rizzo on the rise

Peter Rizzo has been confi rmed as Executive Director of the US Polo Association (USPA). Peter, a three-goal player, has served for almost a year as interim director, commuting from his home in Florida to USPA offi ces in Lexington, Kentucky. He has been general manager of the Royal Palm Polo and Sports Club in Boca Raton for many years and publisher

off the shelf famous players who have competed on the Windsor Park grounds. Quiller Press UK at £40.

Smith’s Lawn: History Of Guards Polo Club 1955-2005

Illustrated book by JNP Watson, former polo correspondent of e Times, to mark this year’s Golden Jubilee of Europe’s highest-profi le club founded by the Duke of Edinburgh. Includes reminisces of Visions Of Polo

Coff ee table book by Elizabeth Furth, author-photographer of similar works on show jumping and dressage. Its more than 300 pages have some 400 colour photographs from major venues in Europe, North and South America, and Australia, accompanied by evocative text. Published in May by Kenilworth Press UK at £29.95.

The Polo Encyclopedia

Meticulously researched and authoritative reference work by Dr Horace Laff aye of Connecticut, former Argentine player and eminent polo historian. With 413 pages and more than 10,000 entries on players, ponies, clubs, cups, and everything to do with the sport. Published by McFarlands USA, cover price $49.95

Playmaker Polo

e latest off ering by Ireland’s Hugh Dawney, veteran international instructor, coach and author. Detailed instruction for both beginners and more advanced players, plus history of the game and review of the contemporary polo scene. 356 pages with 145 photographs and diagrams. Published by J.A. Allen & Co. UK at £45.

The Royals At Polo

Self-published work by well-known polo photographer Michael Chevis of Midhurst, West Sussex, with colour and black-and-white pictures, press clippings and profi les covering three generations of players from Britain’s royal family: the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales, Princes William and Prince Harry. Available from www.michaelchevis.com. £14.95.

of the monthly magazine Polo Players Edition that his wife, Gwen, edits. The USPA Board of Governors has been discussing moving the association’s HQ down to Florida from Blue Grass country, Kentucky being a bit away from mainstream polo.

Get well soon

HERBERT SPENCER

Shivraj Singh, the Maharajah of Jodhpur’s son and heir, may never play polo again after a fall in a Jaipur match that put him in a coma this winter. The 29-year-old yuvraj [crown prince, above with his father) was fl own down to Mumbai (Bombay) where surgeons operated for two and a half hours to relieve pressure on his brain. Shivraj’s injury made front-page headlines in the Indian press, which described the dashing player as ‘polo’s poster boy’ and ‘one of India’s most eligible bachelors’. ‘Babji’, the maharajah, has received hundreds of messages of sympathy and support from friends throughout the international polo community. Doctors have said Shivraj’s recovery has been slow. Three years ago the young prince, who played polo at Eton and Oxford, spent two months in hospital after a similar head injury.

Future stars

Having retired from competition after more than 40 years, the HPA’s new chairman, Christopher Hanbury, is now concentrating on the training of new generations of players at his own Longdole club in England and on an Argentine estancia in which he owns a share. Christopher has convinced local Gloucestershire schools to send youngsters to Longdole for an introduction to the sport as part of their offi cial school activities. Some 80 boys and girls showed up for fi rst lessons with Christopher’s polo manager, Rob Cudmore, from Australia, and more will follow. For those who want to continue, there will be opportunities to travel to Argentina to further their polo education. The HPA chairman got his own start in the game at nearby Cirencester Park Polo Club and, after he joined the army, sparked one of the largest fi nancial investments ever made in the sport, that of the royal family of tiny, oil-rich Brunei on the island of Borneo. As equerry to the ruling Sultan, he taught the chief-of-state and his two brothers to play, after which the Sultan founded the Jerudong Park Polo Club in the capital, which is ‘still unique in the polo world,’ says Christopher. Christopher continues to work for His Majesty, and the Sultan has played numerous charity matches in England, helping to raise vast sums for a variety of good causes.

HERBERT SPENCER

L to r: Prince Charles, Carlos Gracida, Will Lucas, Christopher Hanbury, the Sultan, Prince Jefri, at an English charity match Palermo chicos

Fourteen year-old John Kent, son of former 8-goal international Alan, became the youngest English player to compete on the hallowed turf of La Victoria, No. 1 ground at Palermo in Buenos Aires. Players aged nine to 15 from seven countries got an unprecedented chance to show off their budding skills at Argentina’s national polo stadium in February. Jorge ‘Tolo’ Fernandez Ocampo’s Candelaria Junior International Tournament marked the fi rst time that any competitors under 15 had played at the mecca of world polo, where upwards of 15,000 or more spectators jam the giant stands to watch teams of up to 40 goals in the Argentine Open. The proud young players, girls and boys alike, were from Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, Malaysia, France and England. The English contingent was the largest from overseas and included John Kent, Freddie Horne, Jack Mesquita, Tom Meyrick, Max Charlton and William Batchelor.

England’s fi rst high-goal patron from Eastern Europe is out for the 2005 season and maybe longer. Polish economist and fi nancier Marek Dochnal broke onto the scene last year when he fi elded his Larchmont team with veteran pro Piki Diaz Alberdi at Number 3. His investment fi rm Larchmont was also corporate sponsor of England’s premier mediumgoal tournament, the Royal Windsor, and Marek was at the Queen’s side when she presented the trophy at Guards Polo Club. Last autumn he was detained for investigation into bribery in Poland’s current big government corruption scandal. Under Polish law, he can be held without charge for up to two years. While in detention in Warsaw, Marek (below, middle with wife Aleksandra and Piki) missed the birth of his second child in England.

Adolfo for Aiken

American fans deprived of watching the ‘world’s best player’ during the big Florida season can head to Aiken, South Carolina in September to marvel at his talents. Argentine 10-goaler Adolfo Cambiaso was taken out of action for the winter high goal season by Eric Koch. The superstar was under contract to play private chukkas on Koch’s Jedi grounds just up the road from International Polo Club Palm Beach (shades of Brunei’s Prince Jefri who, in the Nineties, snatched all the 10goal Heguys from competition to play chukkas on his English estate!). Adolfo will be playing for Russ McCall’s New Bridge team in the 26-goal USPA Gold Cup in Aiken, where high goal polo is making a comeback.

ENGLAND: The world’s most cosmopolitan high goal season

L to r: David Jamison, chairman of Cowdray Park Polo Club, Francesca and Urs Schwarzenbach

TEAM PATRONS AND THEIR PROFESSIONAL players from a dozen countries are saddling up to do battle for some of the sport’s most coveted bits of gold and silver as the 2005 high goal season gets underway in May. Across the Atlantic, the vast majority of teams at the top end of the sport are fi elded by Americans, and in Argentina by Argentines. The high goal season is far more international in England, where team patrons come from around the world to play, and perchance to win, at the font of modern polo.

England’s tournaments this year will again be the world’s most cosmopolitan, with patrons from the home country, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Australia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates making plans to compete at 22-goal level during the country’s 2005 season. More than 20 teams are expected to compete in one or more of the ‘big four’ contests. There are several new sides entering the fray, including those of an increased number with English patrons.

The high goal season kicks off with the Prince of Wales Trophy at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club May 10-21, in which seven or eight teams are likely to compete. Next comes the Queens Cup at Guards Polo Club, May 24 to June 12, with at least 13 teams on the cards. The Warwickshire Cup at Cirencester Park Polo Club, probably with six or more contestants, is scheduled for June 14-26.

The biggest prize of all, the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup, will be played for during the British Open Championship at Cowdray Park Polo Club from June 25 to July 17. As many as 16 or more teams are expected to enter this 50th Open. Swiss patron Urs Schwartzenbach’s Black Bears is the only side in contention to have won the trophy twice, in 1992 and 2002.

Two teams are coming straight from competing in the 26-goal US Open in Florida: Italian Alfi o Marchini’s Loro Piana and Venezuelan Victor Vargas’s Lechuza, a newcomer to the English high goal season. German patrons Joe Gottschalk and son Max are bringing Les Lions back after a high-goal hiatus. England’s Martyn Radcliffe, out last season due to injury, is returning with his Oaklands Park team. Also back after a year’s absence is Roger Carlsson’s FCT.

A surprise change in line-ups this year is the replacement of 10-goal Lolo Castignola by 8-goal Piki Diaz Alberdi in Ali Albardi’s Dubai team, winner of the Gold Cup in 2001 and Queens in 2003. Lolo and his fellow 10, Adolfo Cambiaso, were a formidable duo, but Dubai was unexpectedly crushed 17-9 by Azzurra in last year’s British Open. Azzurra’s Italian patron, Stefano Marsaglia, is bringing his team back to defend the title.

Sadly, one great perennial will be missing: Labegorce, which took Queens last year and in 1995 and the 1997 Gold Cup. French patron Hubert Perrodo is taking a year out because of injury, so English fans won’t get to see his star player, 10goal Mexican-American Carlos Gracida, who has won the British Open a record 10 times.

Some likely teams

Ashbert Raiders: Prince Asiri, Nigerian Atlantic: Adrian Kirby, English Azzurra: Stefano Marsaglia, Italian Black Bears: Urs Schwarzenbach, Swiss Buffalos: Jean François Decaux, French Cadenza: Tony Pidgley, English Dubai: Ali Albwardy, UAE Emerging: Fabian Pictet, Swiss Emlor: Spencer McCarthy, English FCT: Roger Carlsson, Swedish Geebung: Rick Stowe, Australian Laird: Richard Britten-Long, English Lechuza: Victor Vargas, Venezuelan Les Lions: Joe and Max Gottschalk, Swiss Loro Piana: Alfi o Marchini, Italian Lovelocks: Charlie Hanbury, English Oaklands: Martyn Radcliffe, English Salkeld: Nick Clarke, English Talandracas: Edouard Carmingnac, French Typhoo: Lyndon Lea, English