Summer 2007

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Stanford Group/USPA Silver Cup Texas Open Charity Polo Day at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in aid of The British Forces Foundation Stanford Field at The International Polo Club Palm Beach

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hurlingham polo association magazine

Sponsor: The Stanford U.S. Open Polo Championship

SUMMER 2007

polo association magazine

© 2007 Stanford Financial Group

Grace Under Pressure.

Whether you’re developing a play on the polo field or putting together a winning financial strategy, you have to have a clear goal and possess the ability to see beyond the immediate chaos. It also doesn’t hurt to have a strong team on your side.

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Stanford has also teamed up with Polo Clubs around the globe to carry on the centuries-old tradition and unmatched majesty of the sport that is polo.

We are proud to celebrate the competitive spirit of these highly trained riders and their superbly trained mounts.

Long live the Sport of Kings.

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WOMEN ON TOP [polo’s female revolution] POLO WITH ALTITUDE [Pakistan’s Shandor spectacular] CUPS THAT CHEER [polo’s greatest trophies] DICKY SANTAMARINA [a legend remembered]

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Introducing:

ARGENTINE POLO TRADITION IN FRANCE

F L O R I D A

Located in the world-renowned salt marshes near the beach of La Baule (Atlantic coast), the Brittany Polo Club provides fantastic polo facilities including 3 polo grounds with their famous Argentine Quinchos, 160 stables, stick and ball field and an all-weather polo arena.

• 7 MILES TO THE BEACH • 30 MINUTES TO WELLINGTON

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Internet: www.brittanypoloclub.com

e-mail: cpc44@wanadoo.fr

Tel/Fax: +33 2 40 62 02 64

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AdolfoAdolfo Cambiaso, Cambiaso, member member of the ofHobe the Hobe SoundSound Polo Club Polo Club

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hurlingham [ contents]

58

24

18

07

38

Ponylines

The latest news from around the polo world, plus interviews and gossip

14

Talk

Charles Fraser, Fernando Mora-Figueroa, Casa Fagliano and Skeeter Johnston

22

First person

Giorgio Brignone explains his love affair with Mexico

24

Travel

GETTY; COVER SHOT SUSAN EGAN; RAJKUMAR SINGH; JORGE BARREIRO; VIRGINIA DEL GIUDICE

Played at high altitude, the Shandor Polo Festival is the world’s most exotic tournament

28 Legend Top polo players from around the world continue to covet ponies bred and trained by Ricardo ‘Dicky’ Santamarina

32

Hot spot

Barbados beckons the polo world

34

Cover story

It’s no longer just men enjoying the game – women are getting in on the action too SUMMER 2007

polo association magazine

38

Design

The history and legacy of some of the world’s most prized polo trophies

43 WOMEN ON TOP [polo’s female revolution] POLO WITH ALTITUDE [Pakistan’s Shandor spectacular] CUPS THAT CHEER [polo’s greatest trophies] DICKY SANTAMARINA [a legend remembered]

On the cover: Dawn Jones, part of a new generation of female high-goal players

The Action

Results, reports and action photos from the season’s most important fixtures, including the US Open, Outback, polo in the snow, the Golden Jubilee in Jaipur and the FIP World Championship play-offs

64

From the archive

Herbert Haseltine’s bronze sculptures capture the beauty and grace of the game

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foreword

By David Woodd, chief executive of the HPA

04

With scarcely a blink, a glorious April and rather unsettled May have passed, and here we are in the middle of the English season.

Sadly there has been another serious accident, and it was a great shock to hear of Skeeter Johnston’s death following a fall. He contributed hugely to polo in America. This magazine is distributed to all registered USPA members and I would like to take this opportunity to extend our sympathy to his family and friends.

Congratulations are due to the England team that was invited at short notice to India to play in a tri-nation tournament with Spain. The team of Oli Hipwood (5, captain) coming from Australia, John Fisher (5) from Dubai, Roddy Williams (6) and Nicholas Pepper (1) from England, met up with Howard Hipwood, who had kindly agreed to be the coach. They did outstandingly well to win the tournament.

Congratulations are also due to the FIP 14-goal England team. They won the first two matches, against France and Holland, but then raised the stress levels by losing to Italy, thus making a win on the final day essential if the team was to qualify. In the event, England won against a previously undefeated Spain and ran out overall winners of the tournament, qualifying with Spain for Mexico in April 2008. The HPA is extremely grateful for the support of the players and all those that provided ponies, to Claire Tomlinson who spent just over three weeks at a busy time coaching the team for no charge, to Chris and Clare Mathias, who provided accommodation for horses, players and grooms at a very generous rate, and to Tony Pidgley and Cadenza who helped towards the expenses. In spite of that, the cost to the HPA was in the region of £60,000 and hopefully this represents a good investment for English polo.

Polo continues to grow in England. Since February, a further nine clubs have been granted provisional affiliation and there are 22 teams in The Queen’s Cup. It also says something about polo here that, of the 26 nines and tens on the Argentine handicap, 24 are playing in England. Last year, the main excitement in the high goal was the reappearance of Ellerston. This year the main talking point is perhaps the appearance of Apes Hill, an all-professional team of English players, backed by Sir Charles Williams and his Barbados property company. Some patronbased teams do not look forward to playing an all-professional team, but a team qualifies on the basis of its handicap and competition at any level is fierce. We hope all teams at every level will enjoy the season.

As you read this, England teams will be looking forward to playing New Zealand at the Beaufort, Chile on Cartier International Day and South America at Cowdray at the end of August. The Coronation Cup match against Chile will give us the opportunity to recognise and remember Gabriel Donoso, a great player, a great sportsman and a true friend of English polo.

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. While every effort 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.

HURLINGHAM (ISSN 1750-0486) is published quarterly by Hurlingham Media, distributed in the USA

by DSW, 75 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville PA 17318-0437. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Hurlingham, c/o PO Box 437, Emigsville PA 17318-0437.

Hurlingham magazine is designed and produced on behalf of Hurlingham Media by Show Media Ltd. Hurlingham magazine 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 welcome feedback from readers: hurlinghammedia@hpa-polo.co.uk

contributors Eloise Napier is the author of two travel guides and a former social editor at Harper’s Bazaar. She has written on subjects ranging from trekking on Baluchi ponies through the mountains of Pakistan to handbag launches on Sloane Avenue. Eloise recently climbed the seven highest mountains in Poland in eight days. She writes about women and polo on page 34.

Minty Clinch is a freelance journalist specialising in adventure travel, especially skiing and riding in out-of-the-way places. She is a regular contributor to national newspapers and magazines, including The Times, The Independent on Sunday, How to Spend It and Country Life. On page 24 she visits the Shandor Polo Festival in northern Pakistan.

Vikram Rathore served in the Indian Army for nine years, is a Steward of the Indian Polo Association and is presently involved with tourism promotion in the state of Rajasthan, where he is Honorary Secretary of the Rajasthan Polo Club. He was the convenor of the club’s 50-year Golden Jubilee celebrations, which he describes on page 56.

Nigel à Brassard is an investment banker who plays polo for Courtenay, Band of Gypsys and Buck’s Club. He is on the Committee of Cirencester Park, the HPA Finance and Grants and is also an FIP Ambassador. Nigel wrote a book on the 1921 Westchester Cup matches and also contributed to Polo Profiles. He writes about the Meadowbrook bronze on page 64.

HURLINGHAM MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Roderick Vere Nicoll Editor Ed Barrett Deputy Editor Herbert Spencer Contributing Editor Sarah Eakin Advertising Director Amanda Bartlett Hurlingham Media 47-49 Chelsea Manor St, London SW3 5RZ +44 (0) 207 870 3170 hurlingham@hpa-polo.co.uk www.hurlinghampolo.com SHOW MEDIA Editorial Managing Director Peter Howarth 1-2 Ravey Street, London EC2A 4QP + 44 (0) 203 222 0101 info@showmedia.net www.showmedia.net

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ponylines [news]Audi Polo Awards, embryo sales, Apes Hill launch and much more

ONE TO REMEMBER Summerfield K ‘Skeeter’ Johnston III, who in April passed away after sustaining serious injuries in a Florida practice match, could be called the professional’s amateur.

Business permitting, Skeeter worked at polo as hard as any of his pros did, from the stables with his ponies to teamwork on the ground, and set an example of sportsmanship and dedication. In his prime he held a 4-goal handicap, relatively high for an amateur, and when he died aged 53, he was a solid 2-goaler. Skeeter was described as one of the best. He liked to win and his teams scored several victories at the top end of the sport, but fair play and the work ethic were always uppermost in Skeeter’s mind. Beyond competition, he devoted himself to improving the sport for everyone, having served as a Governor-atLarge of the US Polo Association and also co-founded the recently formed North American Polo League.

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EMBRYO BREEDING IS BIG BUSINESS

Audi Polo Awards

08 09

Will Lucas was podium-topper at the Audi Polo Awards, winning two individual prizes and sharing in another to the applause of some 450 guests at London’s Savoy Hotel. He was the Apes Hill Most Outstanding British Professional and the Imagine Homes Most Outstanding Medium-Goal Player, and shared team honours when the Hanburys’ Lovelocks were awarded the 18-goal Hurlingham Polo Association’s Julius Baer Victor Ludorum. Guy Schwarzenbach received the Cartier Most Outstanding High-Goal Patron Award and, with his Black Bears team mates, the Knight Frank Most Outstanding High-Goal Team prize. Two members of Dubai also copped prizes: Adolfo Cambiaso as the Audi Most Outstanding High-Goal Professional and George Meyrick as the MIG Polo Most Outstanding Low-Goal Player.

Nina Vestey Clarkin received the Links of London Most Outstanding Lady Player Award, and Women of Mass Destruction won the Bartercard Most Outstanding Ladies Team. In the three-man version, Jonny Good received the Reschke Wines Most Outstanding Arena Player Award and Ocho Rios took the Most Outstanding Arena Team prize. Howard Hipwood received the New Alphabet Most Outstanding Professional Umpire Award.

There were two inductees into the HPA Hall of Fame, receiving La Martina Lifetime Achievement Awards: Doug Brown, long-time officer of Cirencester Park and Ham polo clubs and HPA Steward, recognised for his encouragement of young British players; and Billy Walsh (1907-1992) of Ham, who helped get polo started again after World War II. Julius Baer Victor Ludorum trophies went to Isabelle Hayen’s Groeninghe (15-goal), Mark Booth’s Wildmoor (12-goal) and James Scott-Hopkins’ Irongate (8-goal). HS Above: Will Lucas, Christopher Hanbury, Julius Baer’s Gian Rossi, Charlie Hanbury and James Biem

American professional Jeff Hall purchased the ‘sale-topper’ at the American Polo Horse Association (APHA) sale, which was held at the International Polo Club Palm Beach this winter. Hall paid $175,000 for a polo stallion that was played in the 22-goal

by Miguel Novillo Astrada and which was bred by Brian MacCarty from Big Horn, Wyoming.

Embryo fever gripped the sale ring as mares in foal with embryos sold for between $7,500 and $35,000 while prices reached between $20,000 and $100,000 for embryo ‘options’ from mares such as Adam Snow’s Halebopp, Owen Rinehart’s Raptor and Hall’s Harrah, who were playing at the time in the high goal.

Breeding has become a feasible option for an increasing number of leading professional players since the advent of Newbridge Embryo Centre in Aiken, South Carolina and the recent formation of the APHA which will monitor polo blood-lines in the US. Players such as Mike Azzaro, Sugar Erskine, Carlos Gracida, Matias Magrini, Adolfo Cambiaso, Adam Snow, Owen Rinehart and Jeff Hall have all made use of the Embryo Centre, as have high-goal team sponsors Gillian Johnston, Kelly Beal, Russ McCall and George Rawlings.

The total number of embryo transfers carried out at Newbridge is expected to double this year. SE

AMERICA’S CUP 400TH ANNIVERSARY Horses, fireworks, wine and live music dazzled a crowd of more than 4,000 at the first annual America’s Cup of Polo, celebrating America’s 400th Anniversary.

Guests at the the newly constructed polo field at Historic Morven Park in Leesburg, Loudoun County, Virginia included Italian Ambassador Giovanni Castellaneta, Afghani Ambassador Said Jawad and Qubad Talabani, son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

On the field, the Cartier-sponsored US team led by America’s Cup Founder and Chairman Tareq Salahi, and the Ritz-Carlton sponsored UK Team captained by Julian Hipwood, met for six exciting chukkas, with the UK team eventually winning the Cartier trophy and engraved silver trays, as well as Cartier stainless steel Roadster watches for the entire team. The true winner of the day was Journey for the Cure as funds were raised for the non-profit organisation benefiting the The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

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SADDLE UP WITH...

AMERICAN POLO SCENES American illustrator Paul Brown is justly celebrated for his equine pictures. In the 1920s he illustrated horse races and Long Island horse shows. But it was polo that quickly established itself as a favourite, and Brown became one of the founders of Polo magazine. For the following 30 years his illustrations graced the publication’s covers.

He also worked for magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Country Life, Story Parade and Sportsman. During this period, Brown also undertook the illustration of 32 of his own books as well as over 100 others written by renowned authors, including National Velvet by Enid Bagnold and Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty.

These publications brought the illustrator into contact with Eugene Connett, owner of the Derrydale Press. He commissioned Brown to create three sets of hand-coloured aquatints on the subjects of polo, steeplechase and foxhunting. The set of polo prints was entitled American Polo Scenes and four are now available – which are considered to be the artist’s colour proofs.

For further information, contact www.chisholmgallery.com

DAVID LOMINSKA

VIVARI SPONSORS QUEEN’S CUP Vivari, the new London-based lifestyle company, recently announced its three-year title sponsorship of The Vivari Queen’s Cup, held at Guards Polo Club. The Queen’s Cup has had an illustrious history, attracting the world’s leading players throughout its 47 years. A record 22 teams have entered this year’s high-goal competition and the players include Dubai’s Adolfo Cambiaso, who was hoping to win a record seventh winner’s medal.

‘We are delighted to welcome Vivari to Guards Polo Club,’ said Charles Stisted (pictured middle), Chief Executive of Guards Polo Club. Vivari’s ‘vision to provide discerning members with exclusive access to an exceptional portfolio of second home experiences throughout Europe and across the globe, is the perfect partner for Guards Polo Club,’ he added.

Above: President of Guards Polo Club Prince Philip with Vivari’s Meg Goodman

NICOLAS E. ROLDAN Nationality USA Age 24 Handicap 8 In 1998 at the age of 15, American professional Nick Roldan became the youngest player ever to win the US Open Championship. Last year he won the Camara in Argentina. He is based in Wellington, Florida.

Family background in polo?

Both my Argentine grandfather and my father Raúl, a 7-goaler, played. I was born in Buenos Aires, but at age three moved to the States, where I was raised.

How did you progress in the sport?

I was riding at five and stick-and-balling quite early. I got my first handicap (0) when I was 14 and the next year, after I won the Open, I jumped to three-goals. Then the following year, another jump to five, then six the next. I was seven at age 19 and reached eight last year.

What have you won?

In 26-goal, the US Open, two CV Whitneys and the Gold Cup. In America, the Pacific, East Coast and Texas Opens. The Gold Cup in Sotogrande and Melbourne Cup in Australia, amongst others.

What’s your pony string like?

I’ve got 16 ponies in the US and 10 in Argentina, at La Dolfina - some American and some Argentine thoroughbreds. I prefer the latter, they seem more agile. I train ponies and have also been thinking of getting into breeding.

How do you rate your present Catamount patron?

Scott Devon is handicapped at two-goals.

It’s great to play with a patron who makes such a solid contribution to the team.

Do you see any American 10-goalers on the near horizon?

Not really. Our most recent 10s – Owen Rinehart, the Gracidas, Mike Azzaro, Adam Snow – are all older and unlikely to go back up. Jeff Hall is younger and playing well at eight, maybe he could go all the way. It is my dream to reach ten, and I’ll keep trying.

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HOOKED ON POLO Frenchman Jean-François Decaux, 48, is Co-Chief Executive Officer of JCDecaux, the world’s second-largest out-of-home media company. He owns the Brittany Polo Club in France and is also a patron of the Brittany (formerly named Congor) highgoal polo team in England, where he currently resides.

10

‘There is no equestrian tradition in my family and I didn’t even ride before I moved to England, which was 17 years ago. That’s when I watched my first polo match, at Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park, and was immediately struck by the beauty of the sport. In my business I work on design with people like the architect Norman Foster and am very sensitive to the aesthetics of everything, including that of polo. So I was immediately hooked from my first view of the game.

‘After riding and polo lessons with Michael Amoore at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club, I bought two ponies from former high-goal patron Peter Scott and began playing arena polo at the Berkshire. The arena is a good place to both learn and play; with the ball bouncing off the boards, it requires very quick reactions in a confined space. I then moved onto grass, but I still play arena polo. I play in both England and at the club that I bought and expanded in the middle of the salt marshes of the Loire estuary. There we play on grass as well as on the beach at La Baule. Brittany is now the second-largest polo club in France after Chantilly.

‘I have my own high-goal team in England. I travel much of the world for our company and have no time for practices before the matches, but I manage somehow. I like speed and teamwork, which polo has, but a big part of the sport’s appeal is the aesthetics. Polo is the most beautiful game in the world.’

For more information on hurlingham magazine, visit www.hurlinghampolo.com

CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK Last year, Freddie Hunt was playing polo at Cowdray Park and earning a bit of extra cash from goal judging. Now the teenage son of Formula One world champion James is following in his father’s tyre tracks and will compete in the 2007 British Formula Ford Championship.

Formula Ford has launched the careers of many famous F1 champions, including Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill. Watch this space...

APES HILL LAUNCH Sir Charles Williams and Jerry Barton launched their all-professional English high-goal team at Wentworth Golf club with a glitzy party at which team players Luke and Mark Tomlinson, Tom Morley and Ed Hitchman were joined by over 180 guests. The team aims to lift the Gold Cup and to promote the luxury golf and polo community in Barbados. Above (left to right): Luke Tomlinson, Tom Morley, Jerry Barton, Charles Williams, Ed Hitchman and Mark Tomlinson

RIDE YOURSELF SLIM The iJoyRide is, according to its manufacturers, the first exercise machine that is truly effective at strengthening and toning the lower body, particularly the inner thighs and buttocks. Used twice daily for 15 minutes, the ‘unique Tri-axis motion system called Pitching, Rolling and Yawing’ promises to give you the shapely figure you seek.

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CHUKKAS The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is carrying out a review of all international sports federations to decide which it will recognise, a prerequisite for inclusion of a sport in the Olympic Games. The IOC requirements, including what a sport is doing for women and youth, were on the agenda for a Council Meeting of the Federation of International Polo (FIP) in England at the end of June.

12

Leading American pro John Gobin is the new polo manager at Virginia’s Great Meadow Polo Club where a record 19 teams have entered grass and arena tournaments. Gobin is remembered in England for scoring the golden goal in extra time when the United States beat Great Britain for the first post-war Westchester Cup in 1992.

The HPA is currently looking for a scientific establishment to carry out stringent tests on various brands of polo helmets now in use, before deciding whether to amend the rules of the game to require players to wear headgear of a certain standard.

Equestrian fans were treated to four days of high-goal arena polo during the British Open Show Jumping Championships at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre.

Schools Polo, New Zealand’s only youth programme for the sport, is growing. Roddy Wood, polo manager at Coworth Park Polo Club, said he hosted 13 teams this year at his farm in Kiwi land.

HPA staffer Milly Scott, one of England’s top female players, was married in April to former Pony Club polo player Jack Hodges.

The City Polo Championships, played by teams from London’s financial district, has moved from Cowdray Park to Coworth Park Polo Club for the season.

HERBERT SPENCER HONOURED Hurlingham Deputy Editor Herbert Spencer has been honoured by the United States Polo Association for his work over many years. He received the 2006 Annual Image Award for Contribution to the Public Appreciation of the Sport of Polo, which recognises contributions in the following three important areas: I Vision: the ability to identify a public interest in the sport of polo and the personal commitment to address that attraction on a global basis.

I Creativity: using a combination of his own words, cutting-edge photography and publishing acumen to tell the stories of polo.

I Impact: founder of Chakkar magazine and author of two major books on the sport. As a writer and photographer, Herbert has covered polo at over 60 clubs in some 16 countries.

Commenting on Herbert’s contribution, USPA Director Peter Rizzo said: ‘No single individual has had more influence in informing Americans about the world of polo outside their own country or has had more impact on how the sport here is seen worldwide.’

Herbert sums up his philosophy simply: ‘Tell it like it is, avoid purple prose and superlatives.

Let the facts speak for themselves.’

THE LOVE OF MY LIFE…

Pony’s name Age Sex Colour Height Origin

Chesney 25 Gelding Black 15.2hh England

Former Mexican-American 10-goaler Carlos Gracida, the only player to ever win the Argentine, British and US Opens in the same year, and not once but thrice, played Chesney in England in the 1980s and 1990s.

‘I’ve ridden a lot of very fast ponies in my time, but none faster than Chesney – he’s like a Royal Ascot top winner. But it was not just speed that made him great. He was as handy as the best quarter horse alive, with a fantastic mouth. If a player was catching me, I could check, let him pass and then go on without worries about a ride-off; just check to spoil the challenge. Chesney was always sound and never missed a match.

David Morley bought the four-year-old gelding at the Ascot thoroughbred sales in 1986, training him for owner David Jamison.

I first played Chesney in 1988 and won three

British Opens on him with Tramontana, for whom Jamison was also playing. Everybody recognised what a phenomenon he was and Kerry Packer once offered £250,000 for the pony, but David turned him down, keeping Chesney for me to play. When Tramontana disbanded and I moved over to Packer’s Ellerston, Kerry told me to buy Chesney for myself, but David again refused, selling him instead to Christopher Hanbury for much less. Christopher in turn gave him to the Sultan of Brunei who retired him onto Christopher’s pastures at Longdole in Gloucestershire. That’s where Chesney is now, a pony legend living out his days in retirement.’

ALICE GIPPS

Army duties have seriously curtailed polo for princes William and Harry this season.

Before the Prince of Wales’s retirement from the sport two years ago, the princes played in many of their father’s 18 or so charity matches each year and Harry played in the Army-Navy game and at the HPA’s Cartier International. According to the HPA, which organises the princes’ polo, William has only five charity matches scheduled this season and it appears that Harry might not play at all.

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Left In his uniform of High Sheriff of West Sussex, a position he held between 2006 and 2007, with his wife the Hon Mrs Lucy Fraser

sport due to the costs involved, and the HPA doesn’t have the money or the remit to sponsor individuals. But it’s good that so many prep and public schools and universities are now involved.

view from the top Charles Fraser reflects upon his 12 years as an HPA Steward INTERVIEWER ED BARRETT

Charles Fraser served as an HPA Steward from 1995 to 2006, during which time he served on the Disciplinary, Media, International and Chairman’s committees.

He was Chairman of the Handicap Committee and, for the past five years, Development Committee. He is on the Council, and is also Vice-President and a Trustee of Cowdray. In 2006 he was appointed High Sheriff of West Sussex and has devoted himself full-time to an honour and duty that he describes as fascinating and fulfilling. Here he reflects upon his time with the HPA. How has English polo changed in recent times?

Polo is more popular now in terms of the number of clubs and players. There are better facilities and the standard of play is higher. On a personal level, I am pleased with the way the Development Committee has evolved. There have been suggestions that resources aren’t used to get the top young players to a higher plane, but I don’t

accept the criticism. It is a sport for all levels, not just the very top, and my committee has responsibility across the board. That said, I was very keen to establish a ‘junior squad’ on a more continuous and professional basis.

Previously, a small number of elite players were sent abroad to train, but this was limited and to an extent impractical and expensive. So we revamped the coaching system and made use of top-class homegrown coaches. We established a Development Squad and a programme of matches and tours with the aim of producing a group of players, including potential future England internationals, and the success of this is already evident.

The Pony Club, under my umbrella but autonomous, does a fantastic job with self-funded tours and their wonderful Championships, while the Schools & Universities Polo Association encourages people who might not otherwise come across polo at that age, as well as fostering the better talent. Polo will never be a mass

What were your experiences of handicapping and discipline?

Handicapping is always controversial because it is a subjective, inexact science.

Yet it works somehow: in most tournaments the best teams usually reach the finals and the scores are generally remarkably close.

Discipline is fine. It is mostly about bad manners and bringing the game into disrepute. New powers for umpires mean that spectators don’t have to hear players shouting and swearing like they used to.

And as a player, if you’re not shouting, then you can concentrate more on the game. It’s beneficial all round.

What about the HPA itself?

The HPA as a body needs to lead and be ahead of developments, not follow them.

It is made up of dedicated and committed individuals who are doing their best for a game they all love and the stewards by and large get it right. David Woodd runs a very efficient and diverse office.

Finally, any regrets?

The knee injury that forced me to give up polo after 24 years.

MICHEAL CHEVIS

14

How do you see the international situation?

England generally does well in the FIP tournaments and it is a great opportunity to expose the players from the Junior Development Squad, particularly in 8goal. In other international matches we are also very competitive. Sadly, from a sporting viewpoint, these tournaments are generally not seen as appealing – there isn’t the mix of glamour, royalty and celebrity that you get at, say, the Cartier International. Although the champagne and Jilly Cooper theme can go too far, polo does need the glitz and glamour to attract publicity. It’s a delicate balance and often the sporting achievements are lost in the media.

Cartier Day is a great occasion, but the Gold Cup is a bigger event in terms of sport, with a three-week tournament involving 80 per cent of the world’s best players. The public image often overshadows the reality of superb sportsmen and horses playing a breathtaking and athletic sport. I would love to see polo return as an Olympic sport for London 2012. Apart from Argentina, it would be a close-fought contest among seven or eight countries.

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Businessman and polo enthusiast Fernando Mora-Figueroa seeks to develop the sport in Spain

Left and upper right The Arcos Gardens experience Bottom right Fernando Mora-Figueroa

I was brought up in a polo-playing family and watched the game as a young boy.

When I was 13 years old I started playing polo, and I’m now 31. My best-ever handicap was two goals, but I had to stop playing six years ago when I went to work for the Coca-Cola company in the United States. I am delighted to say that I have now returned to Spain and have taken up the sport once again. I now play with a handicap of one goal.

My family’s relationship with polo goes back a long way. My father started playing at the Chapin polo club about 60 years ago, when the game itself was just getting started in the south of Spain and Sotogrande had started to become a destination for polo players. At the time it was mainly Spanish and Argentinians, but also some English. The season typically took place in August and there was a very famous pitch by the beach. It was a beautiful place to be.

It was here that the game really took off in Spain. In the 1980s my cousin Ramon and his father – also Ramon – in association with the Zobel family from the Philippines, started to seriously develop Santa Maria, which became the club’s new name when it was re-branded in the early 1990s. Sotogrande originally had a couple of pitches; now there are many more. The season has also expanded with polo being played all year round – though the main season is from June to August.

The main tournaments are the Bronze, Silver and Gold Cups played in August.

There are over 30 teams from Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, Venezuela and of course Spain. It’s a big event where over 4,000 horses are moved.

My family are best known for our wine and spirits company Pedro Domecq – we

were partners with Allied-Lyons, who then bought the whole company, which became Allied Domecq. We recently decided to develop the family estate, and as director general of the company I am leading the project. Our company owns 50 per cent of Landmark Spain, and through our main real estate holding company, Groupo Nova Terra we hope to follow the example of Landmark’s American developments and create a community that is based on sport and country life.

The result is the Arcos Gardens Golf Club & Country Estate in Andalucía, which has a championship golf course as well as tennis courts, pools, gardens and a spa – we believe that nature and service are the best things we can offer. We are looking for other activities, and because we are so close to Cádiz I would very much like to revive the tradition of polo in the area.

This is more than just a romantic idea as polo has grown quickly in the south and we are only 50 minutes away from Seville, which has more than five independent polo clubs today.

We have a very good relationship with the Spanish Federation of Polo and they have stated that they would sponsor tournaments in Arcos. Polo would be a great thing to both participate in and to watch. We are thinking of developing a polo academy where people can try their hand at the sport – families and children who want to try something new. We’ll have horses available for training and at least one full-time instructor. I see Arcos Gardens as a pilot project that could be replicated elsewhere, which is a very exciting prospect. I think the future looks very interesting indeed.

For information about Arcos Gardens: www.arcosgardens.com

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booted up 18

Offering family tradition and a personal touch, Casa Fagliano is the bootmaker of choice for the world’s best players WORDS EDWINA INGS-CHAMBERS

Contrary to popular Nu-polo-onic folklore, HRH Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, did not break a trade embargo during the 1982 Falklands War to order himself a new pair of polo boots. At least that’s the way Eduardo Fagliano, grandson of the founder of the famous Argentina-based über polo bootmaker Casa Fagliano, tells it.

‘We’ve made two pairs of boots for Prince Charles,’ says Eduardo. ‘One pair was in 1984 and the second pair in 1987. No, we remember these orders were after the war.’ Fagliano’s royal clientele doesn’t stop there. ‘We made boots for Prince Harry, too, two years ago. He visited our country and he visited us at our shop. We took his measurements and made the boots for him.’ Hey Presto.

Except that getting boots made at Casa Fagliano is not actually that simple. Yes, of course, they have a small line of ready-towear boots and shoes. But the reason the likes of Prince Charles & Son, not to mention the world’s best polo players, frequent Fagliano is for its ability to make the finest hand-made, personally tailored boots anywhere. And they have been doing it at the family-owned firm since 1892.

‘It takes about 40-45 hours to make one pair of boots,’ explains Eduardo. ‘So about one week to a pair.’ This can make the waiting list as long as eight to 10 months.

‘Ten years ago it was easier but now it’s every day, all the time, all year. Now polo is in England, in France, in Europe, in America – it’s around the world.’

The Faglianos themselves travel the world to visit clients. ‘Normally customers come to us,’ says Eduardo. ‘But since the 1980s my father started travelling to see clients and we continue this today. We travel every two to three years; this year, if possible, I will visit England.’ This market increasingly includes women, and Eduardo

reckons that the fairer sex now accounts for 10 to 15 per cent of production.

Family members all possess the knowledge, and sons Nicolas and German, both still at university, can on occassion be found learning the trade at the shop.

Not much has changed at Casa Fagliano. The leather is still Argentinasourced and most of the work done by hand. ‘We try to maintain all the details to make our boots of the same quality – or better – as when our grandfather and his brothers started. We continue with the same spirit,’ says Eduardo. Though some machinery and modern Japanese zips have now entered the picture, that’s just part and parcel of making sure these polo boots can sustain the brutal side of a gentleman’s game.

Hurlingham’s Editor-in-Chief was deeply impressed by the sense of tradition and personal touch that characterise the business. Lured by the family’s reputation as the best polo bootmakers in the world, he first visited the shop in 1982.

‘In the town of Hurlingham you go down this unpretentious little road next to the railroad tracks, and there’s just a small sign outside,’ he recalls. ‘When you walk in it’s like going back a hundred years. I got my boots made and I still use them today.

‘In 2000 I went back and nothing had changed. The father, Rodolfo, looked at me and said “Roderick Vere Nicoll”. Then he took a book from the shelf from 1982, and there was my footprint, name and address, and so on. And it’s not as though I’m a famous polo player. It’s this amazing quality and attention to detail that distinguishes Fagliano’s from the crowd.’

Casa Fagliano, Tambo Nuevo 1449 B1686EOU, Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, Argentina (tel: +54 11 4665 0128), www.fagliano.com.ar

VIRGINIA DEL GIUDICE

A Fagliano affair: (left to right) Nicolas, Hector, Rodolfo, German and Eduardo

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devoted to the sport In April the international world of polo lost Skeeter Johnston, champion of the game and dedicated family man WORDS OWEN RINEHART

Passion is an overused word, but it is the only one I can think of when I reflect upon Skeeter Johnston’s life. He never slept past 5am because there were so many things he wanted to do. In the early days when I needed to have vocal contact with Skeeter I would call his office at 6am and he would always be there. On the weekends, with his family, polo and shooting, he probably got less sleep than during the week. Skeeter had everything and he earned it all.

My relationship with Skeeter was based on polo. We always talked about polo and horses. There is a country western song with a lyric about ‘faster horses, older whiskey, and younger women’. Skeeter’s version would have involved faster horses with great mouths, the drink would have been wine rather than whiskey, the only younger woman he was interested in was his daughter Louisa and the love of his life was his wife Leslie.

My life is better thanks to Skeeter, but also sadder now that he is gone. I will never play a game of polo without thinking of him, and how much he loved winning and how much he tortured himself when we lost. He never gave himself credit for our victories and we never suffered a defeat for which he didn’t blame himself. Competition and fair play were his only concerns. We have lost a true 10-goaler. I hope everyone has had, has, or will have a friend like Skeeter.

The Johnston family are wonderful people and they share Skeeter’s passion for

polo. His father Skey, with whom he was very close, infected him with the polo virus. Skeeter and I always asked his opinion on matters regarding polo, and I am sure Skeeter asked his advice about many other things. The Johnstons treat their friends like family and I feel very close to them because of my relationship with Skeeter.

Skeeter wasn’t easy to get to know but once you did know him, and if he liked you, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for you. On the polo field he always helped his team win. He was an excellent 4-goal player when he left high-goal polo to concentrate on business. His father told him that because he liked expensive sports he had better learn how to pay for them – and he did.

He also thought about business in relation to polo, which is why he cofounded the North American Polo League.

He once told me that when he finished playing polo, his real estate investments – land, barn and polo fields – would all go to pay for his polo.

Skeeter was incredibly smart but never made me feel stupid, which is no mean feat. I miss our almost daily, early-morning phone calls during the polo season and, off-season, at least once a week. In his honour I will continue to pursue faster horses, but will try to stay away from older whiskey and younger woman. He would laugh about that, and I hope he continues to laugh wherever he is. We are the sad ones, because Skeeter is no longer around.

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field of dreams Giorgio Brignone traces the history of his family’s Costa Careyes Polo Club and says the 2008 FIP World Cup will put Mexico back on the polo map ILLUSTRATION JAMES TAYLOR

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My family comes from Northern Italy and I was born in Paris, but it was in Mexico that I got into polo and that is where I’ve lived for more than 30 years. I am delighted that Mexico has been chosen as host country for the 8th FIP World Championship in 2008, an event that will remind players and supporters worldwide of what Mexico offers as a polo destination.

Mexico is famous for its great horsemanship, represented by its charros, the ‘gentlemen riders’ in their big sombreros riding tall, and escaramuzas, young women in long dresses riding side-saddle and dancing ballet with their horses. But Mexico also has a great polo tradition, dating back to when the country won bronze at the 1900 Olympics, and it has produced some of the sport’s most outstanding players including the record-breaking Gracidas from one of the greatest of polo dynasties.

Next April the eyes of the polo world will again be on Mexico, when the final stage of the FIP World Cup opens at Campo Mayo in Mexico City, with eight national teams from across the globe riding onto the ground – no doubt escorted by a group of charros, escaramuzas and mariachis. The showcase event will be hosted by the Mexican Polo Federation with strong support from governmental bodies and sponsors.

Polo clubs abound in Mexico – from Tijuana on the US border to Monterrey in the shadow of the Sierra Madre, from Mexico City to Querétaro – home of the Mexican Constitution – and from Cancún to my own club on the Pacific Coast. These offer overseas visitors not only good low and medium-goal polo (the levels at which most players compete at home) but also fascinating attractions for the whole family.

Keen local players, good ponies, expert instruction, dependable weather, famous Mexican hospitality and located only a few hours by jet from the US – all this puts Mexico well in competition with countries

like Argentina in the polo holiday stakes.

Living in Mexico is exciting and challenging. My family’s journey to this country started in Europe and ended in one of the most beautiful places on earth: in the Pacific Coast state of Jalisco, home of the charros, mariachi bands, Mexican hat dance and tequila cactus plantations.

The Brignones originally came from Pinerolo in the Piemonte region of Italy beside France and Switzerland. Pinerolo has one of Europe’s most famous cavalry schools; the D’Inzeo brothers who rode in eight Olympic games and won 12 show jumping medals hailed from there. But other than my great-grandfather being a cavalry general with Giuseppe Garibaldi during the patriot’s 19th century campaigns to unify Italy, I’ve found no evidence of my family having any interest in equestrian sports before I took up polo.

The family eventually became bankers in Turin, capital of the Piemonte, but in the 1950s my father, Gian Franco, moved to Paris, where I was born. Towards the end of the 60s, he decided to move from finance into leisure development, and went down to Sardinia to study how the Aga Khan was developing his luxury resort, Costa Smeralda. Given a tip from the Bolivian tin baron Antenor Patiño, who had built at Manzanillo on the Mexican Riviera, father then went to Mexico. He chartered a light plane and flew over an uninhabited stretch of Jalisco’s Costa Alegre, between Manzanillo and the resort city of Puerto Vallarta, made popular by the love affair between Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.

Below him my father saw nothing but vast forests, dramatic cliffs against which the Pacific swells crashed, and deserted beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs.

It was a perfect location for the kind of exclusive residential community my father envisioned: a place of great natural beauty, unspoilt, remote, but close enough to major leisure markets to attract residents and

visitors. So together with Mexican partners my father bought up eight miles of that beautiful coastline and moved from Paris to Mexico to turn his dream into reality.

My father carefully controlled the development of Costa Careyes, named after the Mexican word for tortoise. He brought in Mexico’s leading architects to build the resort in stages: first casitas on the beach, then a small luxury hotel, then spectacular villas on the cliff tops. It was a perfect marriage of Mediterranean and Mexican architecture, mixing European sensuality with daring Mexican colours and openness.

This became known as the Careyes style, later much copied up and down the coast.

In 1975, having finished my studies, I moved to Mexico to help my father at Careyes. In the 1980s I took up polo, having been introduced to the sport by players around Mexico City like Samuel and Jesus ‘Chucho’ Solórzano, once president of the Mexican federation (and a bullfighter), 9-goaler Antonio Herrera and Memo Gracida Senior. My first clinic, with the Gracidas, was at Balvanera Polo Club.

Polo at Careyes came about almost by chance. In 1988 a French player from Polo de Paris was staying with us and loved Careyes, but jokingly said he would not return until we had polo. That same day a neighbour rang us to say a cattle ranch about three miles from our resort was available, with good flat land ripe for polo grounds. So we began developing what is now Careyes Polo Club – with the sea turtle as part of our logo, of course.

We stripped a papaya field at the ranch, installed irrigation, planted grass; we must have done something right, for visiting players say Careyes has the best Bermuda grass grounds in Mexico. But where would we find polo ponies? For these, we turned to Jalisco’s charros for help.

Before the thoroughbred came to dominate the polo scene as it does today, many ponies back then were bred from working horses used for herding cattle, the cowboy’s quarter-horse in the US and the gaucho’s criollo in Latin America. Those horses ridden by Mexico’s charros were just such types. We combed villages and small towns throughout Jalisco looking for polo pony prospects. Charros prefer to ride stallions for their spirit (and maybe it’s a Mexican macho thing as well), so there were plenty of mares going spare. We bought horses from the charros and bred and trained them into polo ponies. They are very handy and quick to turn.

The polo season at Careyes runs from November through April, playing three or four times a week. Over the years amateur and professional players from all over the world have come to compete in our tournaments and friendly games. As, of course, have members of Mexico’s own Gracida family.

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There was nothing but vast forests, dramatic cliffs and deserted beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs. It was the perfect location for Costa Careyes This great dynasty, central to Mexico’s contribution to our sport, began with Gabriel Gracida Hoffman, a cavalry officer in the revolution of 1910-1920, who not only played polo but was also a leading charro and protégé of President Manuel Ávila Camacho, himself a keen patron of polo. Five of Gabriel’s sons played, winning tournaments in Europe and North America including the first post-war US Open Championship with an all-Gracida national Mexican team. The next generation brought brothers Memo and Carlos Gracida, the record-breaking 10-goalers. Now a fourth generation of Gracidas are making their mark.

The late Pablo Rincon Gallardo, another leading Mexican player in his prime, emphasised Mexico’s long polo tradition when he led the country’s bid for hosting the FIP’s eighth world championships. The bid was successful, though Pablo sadly died shortly afterwards. Now the event is under the Mexican federation’s president, Rogelio Igartua, and has on board as title sponsor the upscale department store chain El Palacio de Hierro, a long-time supporter of polo in Mexico.

FIP also awarded Mexico the World Cup zone play-offs for North and Central America and the Caribbean. The federation asked if I could organise it at Careyes. With less than two months to prepare, we assembled a pool of good ponies from which the teams drew their mounts – 40 from Careyes and 60 loaned by Mexican players from elsewhere – and a full programme of activities were scheduled alongside the matches.

The success of the Careyes play-offs, praised by FIP president Patrick Guerrand Hermes, bodes well for the World Championship finals next April. With the whole of the Mexican polo fraternity behind this great event, I have no doubt that Mexico will produce one of the best World Cups the world has yet to see.

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peak performance Encountering local tribes and drinking whiskey where Churchill once fought, Minty Clinch treks through northern Pakistan to the Shandor Polo Festival

The ‘Chitral Scout’ band parades on the polo ground shortly before the start of the game

Every second week in July, atop the world’s highest tournament field, ancient rivalries are pursued between Gilgit and Chitral, Pakistan’s northernmost provinces. Laid out on springy turf at 3,700m and surrounded by snow-capped peaks bordering a Himalayan lake, the Shandor Polo Festival is a surreal setting for ancestral warfare.

When polo emerged in Persia in the sixth century BC, it was seen as valuable cavalry training – a miniature battle with up to 100 players on each side. Today’s Pakistani teams have been reduced to six, but if the Shandor final – played for 30 minutes each way with no change of ponies – is anything to go by, their intensity is unabated.

At the finals in 2006, tied scores meant 20 minutes of extra time. When they were still deadlocked at seven-all, the teams then continued to play until Chitral, led by the charismatic Sikander ul Mulk, scraped home by two goals. By comparison, on the same day half a world away, Italian and French footballers were fighting towards their penalty shootout in the World Cup final and barely knew they’d got out of bed.

By presidential decree, our Wild Frontiers pioneering party – which was led by former

three-time National Hunt Champion Jockey Richard Dunwoody – had taken our seats in the makeshift stands nearly three hours before the scheduled start. Dunwoody’s four charges were all women, intrepid enough to tackle Pakistan’s uncharted wilderness but reduced to nail-biting anxiety by the prospect of five hours without a comfort break.

‘Will we be able to hold out?’ they asked tremulously. Given that we’d stopped at every petrol station on the long haul up from Peshawar to Chitral, the omens were not good, but necessity is a harsh taskmaster and no one had to throw themselves on the mercy of the soldiers who guarded the exits to the stands.

The week-long Shandor festival sees the creation of a sprawling tented city that sleeps up to 25,000, complete with bazaar, horse lines and makeshift facilities. On the day of the final, ancient and overloaded cars crawled up the rocky access roads to swell the crowds as the party peaked. Entertainment during the week included donkey polo, tent pegging and buzkashi, an even more turbulent Central Asian polo ancestor, plus a full schedule of B and C team competitions between Gilgit and Chitral.

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critical point. ‘We all rejoiced,’ said Churchill, ‘and went off to eat our lunch.’

No doubt he washed it down with copious drafts of alcohol, rarely an option in the Islamic Republic and especially not in Dir, the town in the heart of the Mujahideen training grounds during the Taliban era.

After lunch in the town’s leading hostelry, we switched from minibus to open-topped Jeeps, donated in flat-pack form by the Americans some 30 years ago when Pakistan was their regional ally and maintained with loving care ever since. Through the long afternoon we diced with Bedford trucks – their bodywork encased in brightly-painted carved wood to ward off the evil eye – and made our way up the rocky Lowari Pass. At the 3,118m summit, we paused Churchillstyle for malt whiskies and fruitcake before descending into Chitral, a province the size of Wales that for four months of the year is cut off by snow.

When the long-promised 20km rail tunnel under the Lowari opens, possibly as soon as 2009, Chitral will become part of modern Pakistan. For the moment, though, much of it remains a fiefdom of the ul Mulks – a prominent princely family during the Raj. When they were obliged to renounce their titles in 1967, they retained control of their properties and laid the foundations for sound business empires.

We spent the first night with Sikander’s cousin Maqsood in his fort-turned-nichehotel at Ayun, and the second with his brother Siraj in the modern Hindu Kush Heights, magnificently positioned on a cliff above Chitral town and favoured by high-

A collapsing wall which spectators mistook for an earthquake made no impact on the speed or scope of the game profile guests that include Musharraf and Robert De Niro.

As in Peshawar, the veil rules, except in the three valleys near the Afghan border occupied by the pagan Kalash tribes. The Kalash co-exist uneasily with their Islamic compatriots as a result of such arbitrary lines drawn on a map by British administrators during the Raj. This particular line divided Afghanistan and what was then India in 1893, leaving the Kalash isolated but with a loophole to worship a supreme being rather than convert to Islam.

Pakistani paganism is at least as sexist as the Islamic religion, with gods, men, goats, altars and high mountain pastures topping the ‘must worship’ lists – while women, birth, sex, menstruation and death are seen as impure. But at least the cheerful and informal Kalash people offer strangers a warm welcome that includes a plastic bottle of local wine and a tour of their homes.

Despite the continuing threat from mullahs, prospective developers and sex tourists from Karachi who are attracted to the bare-headed babes in their beadwork-decorated robes, the

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On finals day, Pakistani bagpipers performed on the field and hang-gliders in the sky until being abruptly cleared to allow three helicopters to land. A sleek Land Cruiser waited to whisk General Pervez Musharraf, President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, to his seat half a dozen rows back from ours. The show was on the road.

At roughly 200m by 55m, the field is shorter and much narrower than the international standard, its dimensions further reduced psychologically by the low stone wall that surrounds it. Polo was reinvented by British officers in India in 1862 and formalised 12 years later when the Hurlingham Club established the rules that form the basis of the modern game. Not that they were much in evidence at Shandor as Chitral red and Gilgit green mingled at a flatout gallop in their struggle for supremacy.

Even a mass pitch invasion, triggered by a collapsing wall which spectators mistook for an earthquake, made no impact on the speed or scope of the game.

At half time, we learned that Musharraf wasn’t there to just watch the polo. Standing tall in his military uniform, he delivered a self-promotional speech in Urdu and English, which gave the ponies and players a rest.

Game over, he tripped neatly down the steps in his military riding boots to join Sikander and his party in the ceremonial teapot dance – arms around shoulders, high-stepping in tight bonding circles – before choppering off to his next public meeting. With so much territory to cover, even such an entrenched dictator has no time to linger.

Our own trip had started a week earlier in Peshawar, the most dogmatic of Pakistan’s major cities. Foreign women are advised to wear headscarves when visiting the mosques and streets surrounding the bazaar, though compliance didn’t save us from the glares of the outraged faithful. Emerging the next day from our retreat in the Khan Klub, a wealthy trader’s mansion converted into a boutique hotel in the heart of the old city, it was a relief to get out into the countryside, even if it was the turbulent and legendry Khyber Pass. Escorted by armed guards for the hourlong drive towards Afghanistan, we arrived at a high point overlooking the harsh landscape on both sides of the border, a thoughtprovoking introduction to the tribal territories that underpin religion and politics in the subcontinent.

The next day we headed north for the 15hour journey to Chitral, pausing at the Malakan Pass where the young Winston Churchill had in 1897 taken a morning out from his polo obsession to lead five officers and 85 ‘natives’ in a skirmish against the Wali of Swat. ‘I was public schools fencing champion,’ he was reported to have bullishly said, drawing his sword to run through the Pathan warrior who’d just killed his adjutant.

The course of 20th century history might have been different if there hadn’t been backup fire from a neighbouring bluff at this

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3 1 Crossing the 4,200 Charmakan Pass to Mastuj 2 Gilgit versus Chitral atop the world’s highest tournament field 3 The domes and minarets of the Grand Mosque Shahi Masjid at Chitral stand against the peak of Tirich Mir, one of the area's highest mountains

ethnic community is hanging in there, numbering 4,000 today.

After two days in their villages, we headed up to Shandor, camping near the polo field on the night before the final and joining a noisy party of firecrackers and fights. When the crowds dispersed, we circled the lake in preparation for our ride into the remote Wakhan Corridor, widely believed to be Osama bin Laden’s hiding place. Some of our ponies had been competing in the tournament during the week, but all were still the picture of health, each attended by his own syce (groom) who ran anxiously alongside in case the foreigners damaged their beloved charges.

At dusk, we cut loose to race across the polo field, celebrating Sikander’s victory on our swift Chitrali steeds. Dunwoody won by a whisker, but only because he’s more adept at jumping the gun.

In the morning we set off down a wide valley and then climbed through craggy terrain, always followed by 14 porters bearing the trappings of civilisation – kitchen, loo, food and luggage – for overnight stops. The

ponies were foot perfect, as they needed to be, given that a slip over treacherous scree could result in a slide into the rapids below.

After crossing the 4,200m Charmakan Pass, we rode to another luxurious billet – and a very welcome bath – in garden chalets owned by 95-year-old Colonel Kush, the oldest in the ul Mulk clan, in his fort at Mastuj.

Sadly we didn’t see Osama, nor indeed Sikander. He’d agreed to an interview, but his victory celebrations were cut short by a little local murder on his farm in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. One of his employees had been killed by an Afghani immigrant from a neighbouring property. Or was it the other way round? Back at the Hindu Kush Heights, his brother Siraj shrugged dismissively. In this part of the world, these things happen.

Just as they always have.

Wild Frontiers: tel: +44 (0)20 7736 3968, info@wildfrontiers.co.uk, www.wildfrontiers.co.uk.

Shandor Polo Festival Tour with Richard Dunwoody, 30th June – 15th July 2007. £2,335, to include international flights, accommodation and full board, two full days at the festival with polo training and a game, plus three-day horse trek.

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hurlingham [ legend]

lords and ladies That’s what rancher Ricardo Santamarina liked to name the polo ponies from his Argentine estancia – and rightly so, for they were aristocrats of their breed. As was ‘Dicky’, one of the most respected breeders and trainers the sport has ever known. Herbert Spencer pays tribute

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In 1932 William H ‘Billy’ Post II came down from Aiken, South Carolina to Buenos Aires to play against Argentina in the famous Cup of the Americas series. There to support the American team was Billy’s 17-year-old sister, Frances. When Argentine player Ricardo S ‘Dicky’ Santamarina, 20, spotted Frances riding at the Hurlingham Club, the country’s premier polo centre, he immediately offered to lend Billy all the mounts from his pony string – to get to know his sister.

‘It must have been love at first sight,’ says Sophie Sivrisarian of Buenos Aires, later to become one of Dicky and Frances’s closest friends. ‘In those days the grand Hurlingham ball was a highlight of the capital’s season.

Frances’s card had one or two dances with others to start, but then it read only Dicky, Dicky, Dicky…’ The couple married seven years later and remained deeply devoted to one another until Frances’s death from cancer in 1998. With Frances gone, Dicky seemed to lose interest in everything – even his ponies – and he died broken-hearted four years later.

It might seem strange to begin a tribute to a great breeder and trainer – and the champion-producing bloodlines of his ponies – with this story of enduring love, but what better way to know the man? I knew Dicky only briefly, so I turned to others in the polo world who knew him well.

Ricardo Santos Santamarina was born in 1913 into one of Argentina’s wealthy and influential land-owning families engaged in the production and export of beef. The family was active in the country’s public affairs: Dicky’s father, Enrique, was vice-president of Argentina in 1930, albeit for only a few weeks in the volatile politics of the day. There is an impressive monument to Enrique in the district of Esteban Echeverría, and streets and plazas are named after the family.

The Santamarinas also became prominent in polo, as players and pony breeders. The family club, Los Caranchos, was located first at Monte Grande and then Corazzi, southwest of Buenos Aires. With five Santamarina brothers playing, the club produced cup-

winning teams, and Ramón Jóse Santamarina was president of the Argentine polo association from 1943 to 1946.

Enrique Santamarina had six sons and a daughter, and he gave each a large estancia.

Dicky’s was La Fortuna, a ranch near Corazzi that was to become famous throughout the polo world for producing top-class ponies.

As well as breeding and training ponies, Dicky played polo for 40 years. In his heyday he held a 7-goal handicap and competed in major Argentine tournaments, winning the Argentine Open with Santa Paula in 1936 and the Hurlingham Open in 1933 and 1936.

Abroad he played in both Europe and the US (in Frances’s hometown of Aiken, which was then the winter capital of American polo).

Lord Patrick Beresford, another close friend, remembers playing against Dicky in England in the 1950s: ‘He played for Cowdray Park with Humphrey Guinness, John Lucas and Lord Cowdray’s son-in-law, John Lakin, against Prince Philip’s Windsor Park team, of which I was a member.’ Dicky won the medium-goal Royal Windsor in 1959, playing for Cowdray Park.

Beresford began travelling to La Fortuna, a short flight by light plane from Buenos Aires, to buy ponies for leading English player Archie David. ‘I remember looking down as we made our approach at what I thought was a flock of sheep,’ he said. ‘Then I realised the animals were not sheep but Dicky’s famous grey ponies.’ La Fortuna’s trademark greys started with the stallion Chota Sahib, son of the Aga Khan’s stallion Mahmoud, winner of the 1936 Epsom Derby in what was then the fastest time on record. This imported thoroughbred was a gift from Dicky’s fatherin-law, William Post. It was after Beresford’s first visit to La Fortuna that Dicky began naming some of his stallions ‘Lord’ and his mares ‘Lady’: the first being Lord Patrick, after the Anglo-Irish aristocrat.

I met Dicky at La Fortuna in 1970 when he agreed to write an essay, ‘The Pony’, for my book Chakkar: Polo Around the World. Several top international players had recommended him

Perhaps the greatest satisfaction in this game is to own and play a good pony you have bred and trained yourself

Love at first sight Dicky and Frances Santamarina celebrate their Bodas de Oro (Golden Wedding) anniversary in 1989

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as the most respected of all the world’s pony breeders. La Fortuna was well known: at the time it had 12,000 acres, 5,000 head of cattle, 67 brood mares and five stallions. The beef cattle provided income as well as the opportunity to toughen young horses – Dicky and his gauchos rode out on future polo ponies to work the herds.

Dicky and Frances were superb hosts.

When Fred Mayer, photographer for Chakkar, awoke with severe back pain, Dicky provided relief by lacing Fred’s morning gourd of mate – the gauchos’ herbal tea – with a slug of brandy. When I admired the braided rawhide cattle counter hanging from Dicky’s belt, well-rubbed from tallying thousands of heads over the years, he made me a present of it.

Frances showed us delightful polo figures she sculpted from papier-mâché, hand-painted by Sophie Sivrisarian, the talented cartoonist who spent much of her time at La Fortuna over the course of 25 years.

Dicky was elegant and urbane and a great raconteur, regaling guests at La Fortuna with tales of polo and his family. One of his favourites was from his childhood in the family’s Buenos Aires mansion: he had stuffed towels around the door of an upstairs bathroom, flooded it, and used it as a swimming pool; when his father opened the door, a torrent cascaded down the staircase.

In his essay, Dicky expounded his philosophy for pony breeding and training.

There had always been a debate over whether the polo pony is a separate breed or just a horse with the right conformation for the game. Dicky was adamant: ‘Polo ponies are a breed, just like racehorses or trotters or hunters. It is certainly correct to speak of a “purebred” polo pony; that is, a pony bred over the generations to play polo.

Characteristics which make a good polo pony are definitely inherited. I find that mares which have been played will produce, 90 per cent of the time, good polo mounts.’

As an example of a ‘classic’ polo pony, Dicky waxed lyrical about Bombòn, ‘the greatest pony I ever bred and played’. In 1958 Bombòn won the Lady Susan Townley Cup for the best pony in the Argentine Open. ‘He had great intelligence and I think he knew he was a champion,’ Dicky told me. ‘He would refuse to go to sleep at night unless his groom spread a fresh bale of straw, like a pillow, under his head.

‘After I retired Bombòn,’ Dicky said, ‘I used to watch him out on the pampas, quietly munching the purple blossoms from the thistle or running with the herd. I would remember the breeding and training of him and the good years of polo on him and realise that perhaps the greatest satisfaction in this game is to own and play a good pony you have bred and trained yourself.’

These words were echoed 35 years later by former American 10-goaler Owen Rinehart, writing in Hurlingham (Winter 2006) about breeding, training and playing his own ponies, many sired by two stallions given to

him and his wife by Dicky. Called Lord Franco and Lord Lizard, they stood at stud at the Rineharts’ Isinya Farm in Aiken, where Dicky and Frances were frequent visitors.

Lord Lizard was sired by the same La Fortuna stallion, Alma de Bacan, as Adolfo Cambiaso’s Aiken Cura, named the Argentine Open’s best pony in 2005 and 2006. Cambiaso was devastated when Aiken Cura broke a foot in the 2006 final. Vets tried to save the great stallion for breeding, but complications set in and Aiken Cura had to be euthanised two months later. Cambiaso’s opponent in the

Dicky chose the buyers of his horses, not the other way around. Several potential buyers were politely refused

final of the 2006 abierto, Miguel Novillo Astrada, also rode a La Fortuna pony.

Argentine 10-goaler Bautista Heguy is another player who is continuing the Santamarina bloodlines. ‘I have a good new prospect bred by embryo transfer from Fortunita, a La Fortuna mare I played in Florida high goal from 1996 to 2004,’ he said.

He also has another retired Santamarina mare, Mora, which Marcus Heguy played in the finals of the 1994 Argentine Open before it was brought to Florida to play for Bautista between 1998 and 2000.

Just two months ago, Owen Rinehart won the award for the best pony string in the 2007 US Open in Florida. It was also a tribute to Dicky: four of the mounts Owen played in the championship were of La Fortuna blood.

Other prominent American players who had ponies from La Fortuna include Tommy Wayman, one-time American 10-goaler; Charlie Armstrong, who named his son Ricardo after Dicky; and the late James R ‘Hap’ Sharp, a leading high-goal patron. ‘Dicky chose the buyers of his horses, not the other

ALICE GIPPS

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way around,’ says Robert Graham, Hap’s sonin-law and now England’s chief umpire. ‘I know of several potential buyers over the years who wished to buy Dicky’s horses, but were politely refused.’

In 1997, with Frances critically ill, Dicky made a big dispersal of La Fortuna ponies.

Frances couldn’t bear to attend the sale, which marked the end of a long breeding and training career. The best ponies were bought by some of Argentina’s top players such as Bautista, Marcos, Gonzalo and Horacio Heguy, Pite Merlos and Jorge MacDonough.

After Dicky’s death in 2003, around 30 of the remaining ponies went to Robert Graham and 30 to Dicky’s great-nephew, Pepe Santamarina, for his breeding operation.

Dicky and his beloved Frances are now buried together on the estancia where they spent so many happy years. Although the couple were unable to have children, the Santamarina name continues in the bloodlines of La Fortuna polo ponies and their progeny – with the promise of more champions in equine generations to come.

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1 Dicky, Georgie Rinehart and Lord Franco at the Rinehart’s Isinya farm in Aiken, South Carolina in the late 90s 2 The two best players on the two best ponies in the finals of the Argentine Open 2007: Miguel Novillo Astrada on Califa (left) and Adolfo Cambiaso on Aiken Cura, both from Santamarina’s breed 3 The Hurlingham team in 1936, (from left to right) Luis Lacey, Dicky Santamarina, Jack Nelson and Arturo Kenny 4 Pete Bostwick and Dicky Santamarina in 1953, the year of the Queen’s Coronation

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Bajan invasion 32 33

With a fantastic climate, international stature and a polo season that dovetails perfectly with the seasons in Argentina and Europe, the island of Barbados and polo seem a natural fit says Karen Kranenburg

The trade winds have blown an interesting phenomenon onto the English polo scene.

And for a change it’s not Argentine, but from the small Caribbean Island of Barbados.

What, one might ask, could an island 21 miles long and 16 miles wide possibly give to English polo that it doesn’t already have?

The answer is the largest commercial sponsorship in the history of English game, supporting the first all-English polo team in over 50 years. Now all eyes are on the Caribbean island and Sir Charles Williams, Bajan construction magnate and owner of the exclusive Apes Hill Golf & Polo community. The team comprises England captain Luke Tomlinson and his brother Mark, Tom Morley and the HPA 2005 young player of the year Ed Hitchman. They certainly have their work cut out, but Sir Charles is known for having the Midas touch. This sponsorship has not only focused the spotlight on the new Apes Hill development but also on Barbados itself,

and the meteoric development of the sport of polo on the island.

Barbados is the jewel in the Caribbean polo crown, and the sport has been an institution on the island for more than 150 years since its introduction by the English Cavalry in the late 1800s. But the last five years have seen radical changes in the way polo is played and run in Barbados – and not a moment too soon.

There is much synergy between Barbados (a world-class destination) and polo (a world-class sport). Airlines fly direct from North America and the UK to this English-speaking country that has four world-class polo facilities and a season that dovetails with the Argentine and European ones. Add to that the inception of the 14goal Barbados Open in 2003, now played annually in March, and this makes Barbados an ideal alternative winter polo destination.

As Petra Roach, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at the Barbados Tourism

Authority says: ‘For those who have attended and indeed played polo in Barbados, you will know that there is no better place in the world to be. It is wonderful that we can now bring our support to England for what we are sure will be a very exciting summer of polo.’

The island has seen an influx of new visitors from as far away as Australia, South Africa and India, as well as some of polo’s up-and-coming international superstars.

Some of the highest-handicapped foreign players in the sport have participated in the Open – the highest being 8-goaler Jose Donoso from Chile and 7-goaler Rafael Silva who hails from Uruguay. There have also been high and medium-goal patrons such as Tony Pidgley of Cadenza, who played in the 2006 Open, and Simon Holley of Ocho Rios, who this year played and won the island’s 16-goal tournament.

Polo in Barbados benefits from professional management, considerable

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With increased stature and status both locally and internationally, the island is carving out a niche in the 12 to 16-goal market

Opposite page The stands at Holders field, one of the oldest in Barbados This page Sir Charles Williams is a frequent player on the island

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involvement of corporate sponsors and extensive media coverage from the local and international press. With increased stature and status both locally and internationally, the island is carving out a niche in the 12 to 16-goal market.

The Polo Barbados programme has also exploded into key overseas markets, with the popular Polo Barbados Challenge Trophy in the UK – which this year will be played at the Beaufort Polo Club on 7th July – as well as the hugely successful Barbados Polo Challenge played in Greenwich, Connecticut against a White Birch/USA team and against Canada in Calgary, Alberta. New events are set to follow in the new year in West Palm Beach and Toronto.

While the polo is extremely competitive, the ethos of the sport has not been lost, and visiting players are welcomed not just as adversaries but as friends. Family traditions are strong in Barbados, and the many photographs in the old Holders club house

are testament to this, providing a picture of a vibrant club rich in history, long on folklore and with many colourful characters.

Families such as the Williamses, the Deanes and the Atwells are an integral part of the Barbados polo fraternity.

The Club also has talented young 3 and 4-goal players, including Sir Charles’s youngest son Teddy who will participate in the Warwickshire Cup this year with old Barbados hands Malcolm Borwick, Chris Hyde and Roddy Williams – a formidable and well balanced team for whom a victory on 24th June does not seem far-fetched.

Barbados polo has truly come of age.

The Bajan Invasion has begun – and it looks as though it might be here to stay.

For further information on Barbados see www.visitbarbados.org. For information on Apes Hill, see www.apeshillclub.com. For further information on playing polo in Barbados, contact bbayley@insurecgi.com

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not just for the boys With mixed doubles and women’s events, female polo players from grass-roots to patron levels are thriving in this once male-dominated sport

Determination usually pays off. So determined was Sue Sally Hale to play polo that for 20 years she pretended to be a man.

Every time she entered a tournament she bound up her chest, painted on a moustache with mascara and hid behind a pseudonym.

The doughty southern Californian managed to keep up this farce until 1972, when the US Polo Association eventually caved in and allowed women to play in official

competitions. ‘It was the greatest moment in my sports life,’ she reflected later.

The number of female polo players has increased significantly since then. In the UK alone, the figure has virtually doubled in the last three years and women account for just under a third of the 2,867 registered players.

There are now more than 10 international women’s tournaments each year, and both the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup and the US

1 Patron Elizabeth Iorio 2 The UK’s highest-ranked female player, Nina Clarkin, playing for England in Sotogrande in April 2007 3 Sunny Hale, the highestranked American female player 4 Dawn Jones, wife of actor Tommy Lee

ALICE GIPP; DAVID LOMINSKA; SUSAN EGAN

WORDS ELOISE NAPIER

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Open have been won by teams that have included women. There are also more women playing grass-roots polo than ever before. This is a substantial change for a sport that was once so male dominated.

What, one wonders, is causing such a shift?

Greater opportunity and accessibility are key factors. As Pippa Grace, founder of the International Women’s Polo Association (IWPA), points out: ‘Every club in the UK hosts a women’s event – there are competitions for mixed doubles, three women and a man, women only – so there are lots of options.’

Many girls have learnt to play polo through the Pony Club and have continued to play as adults. Likewise, mothers with children playing have begun to join in, and wives who have watched their husbands having a great time have themselves decided to learn. Fundamentally, polo has stopped being seen as a sport just for men – a factor that the Grace family at Ascot Park Polo Club has worked hard to emphasise. And with

four polo-playing sisters in the family, this comes as no surprise.

Pippa likewise observed this: ‘We found that we were teaching lots of husbands who were working all week and then coming down at weekends, so they never got to see their wives. We thought, there’s something wrong here – let’s get the wives down, give them free lessons to begin with and just get them started.’

The perception that polo has historically always been a man’s game is simply wrong –

There are accounts of Armenian princesses playing against Persian princes as far back as 400 AD

girls have been wielding mallets for a long time. There are accounts of Armenian princesses playing against Persian princes as far back as 400 AD, and it is even suggested that in those days polo was far more popular with women than with men.

However, later generations of women have had to fight hard, not just to be allowed to play, but – more importantly – to be taken seriously. One of the sport’s leading lights, Claire Tomlinson, had to lobby the HPA repeatedly in the early 1980s to win the right for women to play in high-goal tournaments.

She started playing in her late teens, captained the University team at Oxford, and eventually went on to earn a five goal handicap – the highest ranking ever achieved by a woman. Reaching such a level, however, has meant having to endure a fairly bumpy ride. ‘I’ve come across a lot of chauvinism,’ she admits. ‘The men can get quite jealous.

When I started many of them played roughly just to put me off – certain people wanted to prove a point.’

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old. As they get older they can be playing up to six to eight hours a day. To get to the top you have to have supreme dedication and the opportunity.’ He cites the drive of the Williams sisters in the sport of tennis as an example of the level of motivation needed to reach such a level. ‘It’s going to take someone with huge drive to get to five goals or higher,’ says Peter. ‘It has to be obsessional, and you wouldn’t necessarily want that for your

Women tend to be better at marking. In mixed teams the boys get rattled because the girls mark them so closely

DAVID LOMINSKA; SUSAN EGAN

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When Lavinia Black, a contemporary of Tomlinson’s, went to Argentina in the 1970s, many men had never even seen a woman play polo, and their reaction was the opposite to that of the British: ‘They literally stopped and said, “Please, you hit the ball first!” That stopped fairly quickly once they realised you were a proper player, but even so, for the first couple of years they would never ride you off with any great verve.’

Life can still be tricky for female Argentinian players who want to play professionally. Two-goal Marianela Castagnola, who is now based in the UK, had to fight hard to get her parents to accept that this was her ambition. On the field things have been no easier. ‘In low-goal polo the men are really tough and find it hard to accept women who are the same standard as them,’ she explains. ‘If you score a goal or do something really good they get really angry.

In high-goal it’s different – they respect me and my career.’

Although the standard of play in the Argentinian women’s game is high, Castagnola feels that many of the competitors lack drive. ‘They play just for fun and still think it is a sport for boys,’ she says.

‘Being a woman isn’t an issue in the European game – I feel more freedom here because the men just accept me as a 2-goaler.

There are many more opportunities.’

Men’s greater strength also gives them an immediate advantage over most women in polo. Women can’t hit as far as men and, with weaker upper body power, they can be less effective at close ball work. However, good women players can balance these shortcomings in other ways. ‘Women’s riding skills are usually better than men’s,’ says 2goaler Milly Scott. ‘You generally don’t see a woman playing polo who can’t ride, but you’ll see men who have nerve and can hit the ball, but don’t actually ride that well.

Women tend to be better at marking. In mixed teams the boys get rattled because the girls mark them so closely.’

Interestingly, at a match appropriately titled ‘The Battle of the Sexes’ held during a tournament last year in Nigeria, a 4-goal women’s team was pitched against a similarly handicapped men’ s team. The women won hands down.

If women want to improve their game, the consensus is not to stick to playing womenonly matches. As Pippa Grace argues: ‘The highest rated woman in the UK is 3-goal – ergo, if you are playing only with women you will only play low goal. And that means you don’t experience some of those amazing things that a higher goal player can do, things you can only learn by experiencing them first hand.’

One of the big questions is how far women can go in the handicaps. As in other sports, to get to the top one must almost always start young. As Pippa’s father, Peter Grace, says: ‘In Argentina they [the boys] start playing as young as three or four years

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children. You have to ask, do you want them to enjoy lots of sports or do polo and nothing else?’

One person who may be able to reach the peaks is 3-goaler Nina Clarkin, who at 25 years of age is the UK’s highest ranked female player. She started playing aged six, has financial support behind her, good ponies that she has trained up herself, and the opportunity to play plenty of high-goal polo. But behind the on-field glamour there is a vast amount of effort and determination.

‘She has had to work hard,’ explains her mother, Rosie Vestey. ‘Physically it is very daunting to play at a high level. It is very difficult as a girl to get into high goal, unless you can put finance into it. Don’t underestimate how hard it is.’

And as Lavinia Black points out, things are not made easier for good women players because ‘teams are loath to include a woman in the team when there is an equal handicap with a man – they’ll choose the man, unless the woman is paying to be there.’

However, this situation may improve with more women like Sunny Hale, Dawn Jones and Leslie Ann Fong Yee playing (and proving themselves) at the highest levels.

Female patrons such as US player Elizabeth Iorio are also becoming more common.

Although new to the sport, Iorio is a classic

example of someone who has the right combination of qualities to prove that women can learn to compete at the high-goal level just as efficiently as male newcomers.

Having evented internationally she knows horses inside out. With a combination of personal financial backing and strong sponsorship, Iorio has been able to invest in good trainers and players for her team Laurence-Wallace. She knows all about the effort involved in becoming an elite athlete. ‘I have always been a determined woman,’ she insists. ‘I have never done anything halfway.’

Iorio cites another top American player, Gillian Johnston, as her inspiration. She also highlights the hard work she has put in over the last 12 months: ‘I rode 10 to 15 horses a day throughout the year, learning from Mike Azzaro [her team-mate] as he patiently ripped his hair out, but never gave up. And nor did I. Truly days of blood, sweat and tears. I believe determined women can accomplish anything. I hope we make the way easier for the girls to come to continue to raise the bar on women’s polo throughout the world.’

To learn to play polo: contact in the UK, The Hurlingham Polo Association, www.hpa-polo.co.uk, tel: +44(0) 1367 242 828. In the US, the United States Polo Association, www.us-polo.org Tel: +1 859 219 1000

If women want to improve their game, the consensus is not to stick to playing women-only matches

1‘The Battle of the Sexes’ in Nigeria last year 2 Long-time polo player Lavinia Black 3 Pippa Grace hails from a family of poloplaying sisters

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eyes on the prize Herbert Spencer tells the story of the world’s most famous and historic polo trophies

When it comes to sports trophies, most competitors are more concerned with winning them than with appreciating their legacy. And in polo this is particularly true, especially when the importance of competitions at which polo trophies are presented is not always reflected in how big, beautiful or impressive the prizes might be.

Size for one, is irrelevant for polo prizes.

Nothing demonstrates this more dramatically than the high-goal Queen’s Cup in England and the low-goal Kolanka Cup in India. The Queen’s Cup – traditionally presented by Her Majesty The Queen at Guards Polo Club to the winners of England’s second most important tournament – is the sort of small, plain silver bowl one might find filled with bon-bons on a sideboard in a stately home.

Awarded since 1956 to some of polo’s top teams from around the world, this discreet royal prize is dwarfed by the six-foot tall Kolanka Cup, awarded to the winners of a humble competition in Madras. Donated by the Raja of Kolanka between the wars, the cup was once marked by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest sports trophy. While the Queen’s Cup won’t even hold a full bottle of celebratory champagne, it would take more than 27 bottles of bubbly to fill the giant Indian trophy.

While the Queen’s Cup won’t hold a full bottle of celebratory champagne, it would take more than 27 to fill the giant silver Kolanka Cup

The Kolanka Cup towers above even the Coronation Cup, the substantial bit of precious metal presented for the annual high-goal test between England and a visiting national team at the Cartier International, the flagship event of the Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA) with over 25,000 spectators. This silver gilt trophy, displayed in Piccadilly’s Cavalry & Guards Club between events, is currently insured by the HPA for £85,000.

Garrard the Crown Jewellers crafted the Coronation Cup in 1911, the same year that the London firm made ornate crowns for Queen Mary and King George V’s coronation and the Emperor of India’s spectacular durbar in Delhi. Established in 1735, Garrard was not only responsible for maintaining the Tower of London’s crown jewels, but also fashioned many of the world’s most famous sports trophies – among them sailing’s America’s Cup, the Cricket World Cup and of course many glittering polo prizes.

Across the Atlantic, jeweller Tiffany & Co – which has made famous sports trophies like those for baseball’s World Series and the US Open tennis championship – made the Westchester Cup for the world’s oldest international polo tournament, a series that started in 1886 and was played intermittently between the USA and England. America’s

Opposite page The Prince of Wales Trophy made by Theo Fennell in 1986 This page Tiffany’s Triple Crown of Polo tropy for a new television series aired on ESPN

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trophies. The winners’ plaques on its face read like a Who’s Who of famous players of the era, such as the Maharaja of Jaipur, the legendary Rao Rajah Hanut Singh of Jodhpur, Australia’s Ashton brothers and English 10goalers Pat Roark and Gerald Balding. At the outbreak of World War II, polo was suspended and the HPA consigned the trophy to Garrard for safekeeping. There it lay in the firm’s vaults, forgotten, until the 1990s when the Crown Jewellers ‘discovered’ it during an inventory. Today the historic Indian Empire shield is back in service as the prize for a 15 to 18-goal tournament at Coworth Park Polo Club. An historic trophy certainly worth cherishing – and winning.

In the United Kingdom the two oldest polo trophies still played for are both military Above Cartier’s Arnaud Bamberger and Prince Harry look on as England’s captain Luke Tomlinson lifts the Coronation Cup last year

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first polo club, the old Westchester, which initially laid down the transatlantic challenge, commissioned the trophy. Last won by England in 1997, the cup is on display at Cavalry & Guards.

For some reason Tiffany also made an identical ‘sister’ cup at the same time as the Westchester. In the 1970s the late John T Oxley, owner of the Royal Palm Polo Sports Club in Boca Raton, Florida, found and bought the twin, had it gold-plated and offered it for the club’s 20 to 26-goal International Gold Cup with prize money of $100,000. Today the trophy is presented as the $25,000 International Cup for a 14 to 18goal tournament at Boca – ‘Gold’ being dropped from the tournament name to avoid confusion with the US Polo Association’s 26goal Gold Cup. Tiffany’s latest contribution to the pantheon of polo prizes is the Triple Crown of Polo trophy for a new television series aired on sports channel ESPN. Consisting of 36 separate pieces, the sterling silver prize features the figures of three players and weighs almost 75 pounds.

In the United Kingdom, where English army and naval officers helped spread the sport around the world in the 19th century, the two oldest polo trophies still played for are both military: the Inter-Regimental Polo Challenge Trophy from India (1877) and the Inter-Regimental Trophy (1878). Compared with these, the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup for the British Open Championship is relatively new. The original Cowdray Park Gold Cup, donated by the late Lord Cowdray in 1956, was stolen in 1968 and never recovered. It was replaced by the present silver gilt trophy that was adapted from an existing cup without polo motifs.

One of England’s youngest and more unusual high-goal prizes combines the two most popular materials used in trophies: gold and silver. The Prince of Wales Trophy at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club was created by London jeweller Theo Fennell in 1986. A 17-inch high statuette of a player making a forehand shot, the pony and rider are adorned in silver and the pony’s tack and player’s kit are in gold. By law, even the smallest bit of tack and kit had to be officially assayed and stamped with English hallmarks.

Perhaps the most unusual trophy of all, and certainly one of the most impressive, is the Indian Empire Polo Challenge Shield, presented by India’s maharajas to English polo in 1927 – though it was ‘lost’ for more than half a century before being rediscovered. Commissioned by the rulers of 24 polo-playing princely states, the trophy is fashioned after a warrior’s ceremonial shield. The great disc of heavy wood is 31 inches in diameter and emblazoned with silver and silver gilt plaques that depict the individual princely states, landmarks like the Taj Mahal, Hindu deities and Indian wildlife.

From 1927 to 1939 the shield was one of England’s most important high-goal

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the action

BRETT O’CALLAGHAN

[drama] Catch up on all the action from around the world, including snow, beach and desert polo

44 Florida

52 FIP play-offs

58 Beach polo

Both high and medium goal made news in the southern state. Drama unfolded at the International Polo Club Palm Beach, which hosted the Gold Cup, Stanford USPA Open and CV Whitney tournaments. Meanwhile, medium goal’s future is uncertain

Zone competitions for the eighth World Championships in Mexico in 2008 saw England’s preparation pay off and South Africa emerge as a rising power in the world of polo

All the action from the FedEx Miami Beach Polo World Cup

50 Snow polo The wintry game is flourishing, from Russia to the Italian Dolomites, and attracting both pro and amateur players from all continents

60 Desert polo

56 Golden Jubilee

Times are hard for California, as a16-goal tournament plays under the cloud of a pending club sale

India’s renowned club celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with scintillating polo matches and lavish entertainment in Rajasthan cradle to the game of polo in India

Above Ignus (Nachi) du Plessis at the FIP World Cup play-offs in New Zealand in March

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Florida high goal In most respects the 2007 winter season at International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPCPB) was the best yet. Club owner John Goodman added the Gold Cup to his fixtures, giving him a monopoly of the US Polo Association’s 26goal tournaments, the highest level at which American polo is played. The club’s grounds were greatly improved and the consensus was that the quality of polo was higher than in previous years. And competition for the biggest prize, the Stanford USPA Open Championship, was fierce, with two opposing players from the final earning new 10-goal

ratings on the USPA’s handicap list Yet three unforeseen events made the season less than perfect: the tragic death of one of the country’s leading team patrons and close friend of Goodman; a match-throwing scandal involving the doyen of the world’s professional players; and an outbreak of equine virus that killed ponies and threatened the season even before it started.

None of this, of course, detracted from the glory earned by that dynamic Argentine duo, 10-goal Adolfo Cambiaso and 9-goal Matias Magrini. They combined brilliantly on teams

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DAVID LOMISKA; ALEX PACHECO

Polo’s winter season saw a higher quality of polo, but three unforseen events overshadowed the tournaments, Herbert Spencer reports

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that won four of IPCPB’s five high-goal tournaments including the Open. For his performance Magrini’s American handicap was raised to 10 goals after the season.

Fellow Argentine Juan Martin Nero, against whom Cambiaso and Magrini played in the Open final, was also raised to 10, the sport’s maximum rating.

IPCPB’s high-goal season starts in early January, as does the build-up to the Winter Equestrian Festival – the world’s biggest show jumping event – at the neighbouring Palm Beach Polo Equestrian Center. Upwards of 5,000 competition horses, for both the equestrian events and polo, are stabled in and around the small town of Wellington during the season. So when an equine herpes virus broke out in December, there were fears that it might spread and force postponement of all the horse sports events in the Palm Beach

1 Adolfo Cambiaso and Juan Martin Nero, who was raised to 10-goals 2 Pelon Stirling and Pablo MacDonough 3 Elizabeth Iorio played her first highgoal season

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County area.

In the end, although seven Wellington facilities were placed under quarantine and several horses died (including two polo ponies), the outbreak was luckily contained and the polo and equestrian season went ahead as planned.

The equine virus outbreak did however keep the Marquis of Milford Haven’s Broncos out of the opening tournament at IPCPB. This was the first time in many years that an English-patroned high-goal team had travelled to the USA, but the Broncos missed the 22-goal Joe Barry Memorial tournament because their ponies were under quarantine.

Once their ponies were free, the Broncos made it into the quarter-finals of the Ylvisaker

Cup, but fell to Laurence-Wallace.

Laurence-Wallace was fielded by eventer Elizabeth Iorio, making her high-goal debut.

This was the first time that there were not one but three female patrons in Florida high goal: Iorio, Dawn Jones (wife of actor Tommy Lee) with San Saba and veteran Gillian Johnston with Bendabout (the only woman patron to ever win the US Open, with CocaCola in 2002).

The 22-goal Joe Barry and Ylvisaker tournaments also brought the first two of the Cambiaso-Magrini partnership victories.

Playing for Atlanta businessman Russ McCall’s New Bridge La Dolfina, they won every match in the two competitions.

An amazing 20-game winning streak for

Cambiaso and Magrini in American high goal (2006-2007) finally came to an end in the 26-goal CV Whitney tournament when Skeeter Johnston’s Skeeterville defeated Crab Orchard, George Rawlings’s team to which the two had moved after the 22-goal.

Scott Devon’s Catamount beat Peter Brant’s White Birch 14-13 to take the Whitney.

Next up was the USPA Gold Cup that the association moved this year from McCall’s New Bridge Polo Club in Aiken, South Carolina, to Goodman’s IPCPB. McCall’s team with Cambiaso and Magrini won it at Aiken last autumn; this year Rawlings’s Crab Orchard won it at Wellington. During the preliminary matches, Crab Orchard set a record by beating Las Monjitas, the 2006 US Open champions, by a whopping 14 goals to one. No mystery here: try as they might Las Monjitas, with Eduardo Novillo Astrada suffering from a riding muscle, simply could not get it together.

It was during a semi-final match for the Gold Cup that the biggest scandal to hit polo in recent times marred the season. Fifty-yearold Mexican-American Memo Gracida was 10-goals for 20 years, longer than any other living player, and had won the US Open 16 times – an unassailable record. Together with Canada’s Freddie Mannix, the world’s highestrated amateur at 7-goals, Memo entered La Herradura in the Gold Cup and US Open, with

DAVID LOMISKA; ALEX PACHECO

The USPA Gold Cup was moved from McCall’s New Bridge Polo Club in Aiken, South Carolina to Goodman’s IPCPB. McCall’s team won it at Aiken last autumn; this year Rawlings’s Crab Orchard won it at Wellington

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Memo’s son Julio and American pro Kris Kampsen completing the squad. With three pros and a 7-goal amateur, it was a team to be reckoned with.

IPCPB held the draw for the Open before the Gold Cup finished. Memo, as a ‘strategy’ to get into a weaker league in the Open, blatantly threw La Herradura’s semi against Lechuza Caracas, losing 18-7 in a performance that disgusted spectators.

IPCPB immediately banned the La Herradura players from competing at the club for the rest of the year, ‘to protect the integrity of the sport’. When Memo appealed to the USPA, arguing that he had broken no rules by not trying to win, the association agreed he was still eligible to play in the US Open – but ambiguously said it could not interfere with the club’s disciplinary action. So the ban stood and Memo this year lost his chance to win his 17th Open.

Shocking though the match-throwing incident was, what really shook the polo world was the death two weeks later of Skeeter Johnston, one of the most respected of all amateur players and team patrons. His Skeeterville had won their first US Open game against Catamount 12-11 in overtime, and while practising for their next match, Skeeter then fell, suffering horrific injuries from which he failed to recover. A mark of Skeeter’s popularity was the attendance of

some 1,300 players, grooms and supporters at a celebration of his life held by the Johnston family at Everglades Farm, the site of his accident.

When Rawlings’s Crab Orchard met the Jedi team of young Torsten Koch (a former pupil of Cambiaso) in the US Open final, nothing seemed certain. Jedi were playing their first Open since 2002, but had already defeated Crab Orchard 10-8 in an earlier league match. Jedi took an early 5-1 lead, but then the Cambiaso-Magrini combo, backed

by Pelon Stirling, rallied to make it a battle royal. Jedi’s Christian ‘Magoo’ LaPrida tied up the game 14-14 a minute before game’s end, but Cambiaso took a pass from Magrini to win the title just 18 seconds before the final horn.

As IPCPB polo manager Jimmy Newman, running his 17th open, commented on the season: ‘Our grounds were 60 per cent improved over last year, we had a lot of strong teams, the polo was better, and by the time the 26-goal started, it was almost anybody’s game.’

As the season clincher, the new North American Polo League founded by IPCPB owner Goodman and Skeeter Johnston presented a $100,000 cheque to Crab Orchard’s patron Rawlings for his team’s US Open win. A handy bit of cash to cover some of Cambiaso’s pro fees and expenses.

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1 A parachutist lands at Stanford Field at the US Open finals 2 The Marquis of Milford Haven 3 Pablo MacDonough on 22-year-old Paloma 4 Matias Magrini was raised to 10-goals

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Florida medium goal The medium-goal clubs are where players go when not competing in high-goal tournaments, but this could change says Herbert Spencer

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‘Many of us are planning to move over to the Johnston’s Everglades Farm for tournaments,’ said Lipman. Before his death in April, Skeeter had considered developing a medium-goal season at Everglades to replace some of the Gulfstream action.

The Outback Polo Club is another centre for medium-goal polo. The club’s two grounds are situated in the middle of John Goodman’s IPCPB and for several years it has organised monthly 14-goal tournaments during the winter season. The biggest this year was the March league with 15 teams, won by Lechuza, led by Alfredo Vargas, nephew of the patron of the high-goal Lechuza Caracas team at IPCPB. George Rawlings’s Crab Orchard won the February event, before he shifted up to high goal to win the US Open.

Dawn Jones’s San Saba took the April Outback while her husband, actor Tommy Lee, was competing in the Open with the high-goal San Saba side.

‘You have to understand that medium goal in Florida is as important as high goal,’ argued Lipman. ‘It provides more polo to patrons who may or may not be playing high goal and it provides more work for a lot of professional players during the winter, whether or not they are also playing in the high goal.’

It’s the big high-goal events that get the headlines, of course, but there are a lot more players and many more matches further down the polo pyramid. It is from medium goal that both amateurs and pros move to the higher levels of the sport. Where will Florida medium goal be in 2008? Watch this space.

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Gulfstream was for years Florida’s only club. It shifted to concentrate on medium and low goal only after the advent of new, high-goal clubs on the Gold Coast

1 George Rawlings and his manager Rosendo Usandizaga share congratulations 2 The Lechuza Caracas coaches: (from left) Sebastian Merlos, Victor Vargas and Pite Merlos 3 Alfredo Vargas in full swing

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Medium-goal polo around Palm Beach – the base from which the higher-profile, high-goal game in Florida has traditionally developed – is in a state of flux.

‘It’s hard to tell at this stage whether medium goal in the area will expand or contract,’ says Robert Lipman of Nashville, Tennessee and the former president of Gulfstream Polo Club. ‘There are several new clubs and facilities springing up in and around Palm Beach County, but which ones might become popular medium-goal centres remains to be seen.’

For many years Gulfstream has been the main venue for medium goal in the area, and joined more recently by Tim Gannon’s Outback Polo Club in Wellington. Now, however, the land they occupy is up for sale and play at the medium-goal level could disappear when buyers come along.

Founded in 1923 by leading polo players from the north as a high-goal winter destination, Gulfstream was for years Florida’s only club. It shifted to concentrate on medium and low goal only after the advent of new, high-goal clubs on the Gold Coast: first Royal Palm at Boca Raton, then Palm Beach Polo in Wellington, followed by International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPCPB).

Currently Gulfstream and Outback are where team patrons and professionals play between competing in high-goal tournaments at IPCPB. Many of the best-known amateur players in the USA as well as leading American pros enjoyed four months of medium goal at the two clubs this season.

But this could change next year as the Gulfstream Polo Club may disappear.

Gulfstream got a temporary reprieve last December when property developers pulled out of a deal to buy the land occupied by the club’s seven tournament grounds, the stick and ball areas, stables, and the surrounding private properties of polo players. ‘We had already accepted that Gulfstream would disappear, and we were happy to have at least another year of play there,’ said Lipman.

‘But when another buyer comes along, the land will be sold.’

Among those competing in medium goal at Gulfstream were the Johnstons – Skeeter, Gillian, and their nephew Will; Orrin Ingram, former chairman of the US Polo Association, and brother John; and the Orthweins, who fielded a family team. Canada’s Brandon Phillips and Steve Dalton were there, along with English ex-pat and former England captain Julian Hipwood, England’s Adrian Wade and South Africa’s Sugar Erskine.

American pros included Tiger Kneece, John Gobin and Tommy Biddle from Aiken and young Santiago Torres from California.

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Polo in the snow Snow polo has expanded from the flagship Cartier World Cup in St Moritz to Russia and the Italian Dolomites, reports Yolanda Carslaw Polo on snow continued apace this season after the wintry game’s flagship fixture at St Moritz in January [see previous issue]. While the Swiss resort’s four-day, four-a-side 22goal tournament is firmly established as the pinnacle of Europe’s snow calendar, Europe’s circuit on the white stuff is expanding every year. New events and one-offs have been staged in Klosters and Crans Montana, while several ‘young’ fixtures are gathering momentum and raising their profile.

In Russia, polo took place for the fourth winter in a row on snow, this time at the Russian Polo Club (RPC). This is the second club to be set up by Victor Huaco, the Moscow-based, Peru-born financier who revived the game in Russia in 2003 by founding the Moscow Polo Club (MPC).

Five teams, largely made up of Russian and American amateurs and Argentine pros, entered the three-a-side Rolex Snow Polo Cup. The tournament was held at RPC’s base, the Otrada Sports Club – an equestrian centre 40 minutes from Moscow city centre.

Amateur players included: Victor Huaco; John Lynn, the British/Canadian owner of polo kit company Polistas; Allosha Rodzianko, the son of a founder member of MPC; American expats David Geonvanis and Hawk Sunshine; and the American Mark Stiles and his wife, Laura, who travelled from Dubai. Pros included Nikolas Petracchi, Bernardo Cormick (who helped set up MPC), Hernan Traverso,

manager of MPC, and Adolfo Casabal, polo manager for British patron Clive Reid, who won the trophy last year.

A round robin on the Saturday produced two finalists, Kauffman and Land Rover, who met over four chukkas on Sunday in front of spectators and sponsors’ guests. Kauffman, with Adolfo Casabal calling the shots, overcame Huaco’s Land Rover 13-7 under clear skies and in crispy conditions.

Compared to St Moritz, the action was decidedly low-goal – the highest-rated players being four goals – but the event drew substantial sponsorship with organisation improving every year. Casabal told Hurlingham: ‘The whole thing was great fun.

Everything ran on time and the ponies arrived on schedule. We had beautiful weather, although it was minus 10 to 15. You can see the difference from one year to the next, organisation-wise. Polo in Russia may be very new, but it’s getting better and better.’

In the Italian Dolomites, just as Kauffman were celebrating their victory, qualifying rounds in the week-long Winter Gold Cup (25 February to 3 March) were getting underway. Six 16 to 18-goal sides converged on the upmarket ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo to play on the frozen Lake Misurina. The fixture, taking place for the sixth time, is one of a trio of Italian Gold Cups – the others take place in early and late summer on the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia.

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The four-man teams mainly comprised Argentine pros – generally not the same collection seen on the British circuit – and Italian patrons. Several British pros (Michael Howe, James Harper, John Fisher and John Horswell) and a British patron (Arthur Fitzwilliam) were also involved. The 8-goal Menendez brothers, Eduardo and Francisco, were the highest handicapped players.

This year’s variable weather conditions made what is already a challenging game even trickier. Snow polo is played with a large, light ball that travels unpredictably, and it needs to be light to run over the choppy surface that snow provides. This makes following tactics difficult, and often it is the team with the most experience on snow that is successful. Such was the case at Cortina, where the two finalists already had several wins on snow under their belts.

After five days of play – in variable weather and snow conditions – finalists were determined, with the red shirts of Audi facing the white shirts of Jaeger-LeCoultre on a blustery Saturday afternoon. Audi, with the formidable duo of David Bernal and Dario Musso, soon opened up a two goal lead, which they maintained until the end of the third chukka. The whites’ Eduardo Menendez – the highest scorer of the tournament with 24 goals – closed the gap in the final chukka, but Audi held on to win 7-6.

Audi patron Rommy Gianni registered his third win in the tournament (he also lifted the trophy in 2002 and 2003) bringing him equal with his Jaeger-LeCoultre counterpart, Luca D’Orazio, who has won for the past three years. The losers at least had the consolation that Eduardo Menendez’s mare, Gama, was named best playing pony.

Following tactics is difficult and often it is the team with the most experience on snow that is successful. This was the case at Cortina

1 The pitch in Cortina d'Ampezzo 2 Mochi Craft’s Horacio Etcheverry and Hotel de la Poste’s John Fisher 3 The winning Audi team 4 Deutsche Bank PWM’s Hernan Pieres and Jaeger-LeCoultre team’s Eduardo Menendez

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FIP World Cup play-offs Herbert Spencer reports on the battle for places at the VIII FIP World Championships in Mexico 2008

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ADAM FINNER

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A new group of nations has qualified for the Federation of International Polo World Championship – with England thus far the only one of three returning teams to earn a place after winning this year’s zone play-offs.

Eight teams now meet at the World Cup in Mexico City in April 2008.

Brazil and Mexico, like England, were in the previous World Cup at Chantilly, France, in 2004, but in the current competition they are automatically qualified without having to play in their zones: Brazil as reigning champions and Mexico as the 2008 host nation. Of the other teams that played at Chantilly three years ago, the USA, France, Australia and Pakistan have been knocked out in this year’s preliminaries. New teams headed for Mexico are Canada, Spain, South Africa and New Zealand. South America zone eliminations this autumn will fill the last of the eight places for Mexico 2008.

The FIP World Cup is pegged at the 10 to 14-goal level to enable as many countries as possible to field teams. No player handicapped above five goals is allowed to compete. But with most teams comprised of young, up-and-coming professional players, many already have high-goal experience and the quality of polo is usually a step above other medium-goal events.

England’s success in qualifying during the Europe zone play-offs at Sotogrande in Spain was due in no small part to support from the Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA). The association has a policy of building strong national teams for both FIP events and international test matches at home and abroad. While most countries have to rely upon corporate sponsorship or private patronage of their national teams, the HPA invests both time and hard cash to support the England side.

The Europe zone play-offs at Santa Maria Polo Club in Spain’s Costa del Sol were organised by the Royal Spanish Polo Federation as well as by the host club’s director, Luis Estrada, and polo manager Santiago Torreguitar. FIP’s Farouk Younes of Egypt was tournament director and the federation brought in three professional Argentine umpires to officiate.

Unlike play-offs in the other zones – where teams draw their ponies from pools provided by the host country – European teams were allowed to bring their own mounts. Each was allowed 30 ponies that were required to be registered to prevent substitutions during the tournament. Pony Welfare Officer Nick Williams and a team of timekeepers enforced the FIP rule that no pony could be played for more than seven minutes in a match.

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No player handicapped above five goals is allowed to compete. But with most teams comprised of young up-and-coming professional players, many already have high-goal experience

1 The USA team’s Santiago Torres in Mexico 2 FIP meeting at Careyes (from left): FIP’s Mexico President Rogelio Igartua, FIP president Patrick Guerrand Hermes, Mexican Sports Minister Lieutenant Colonel Alonso Perez Gonzales and USA FIP Secretary Paul von Gontard 3 Spain’s Pascual Sainz de Vicuna (left) chased by Tom Morley of the England team

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consolidate their standing. New Zealand just managed a 7-7 draw against regional rivals Australia, but it was enough to give them the points to qualify along with South Africa.

FIP World Championship play-offs for countries from North and Central America and the Caribbean were held in April and May at Costa Careyes Polo Club on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Before the Costa Careyes tournament, a sub-zone elimination was played in Guatemala between that country, Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, with the former two teams winning places for Careyes. The Dominicans, however, were unable to obtain Mexican visas for all the team members, so in the end the Careyes play-offs were only between the USA, Canada and Guatemala.

New Zealand just managed a 7-7 draw against regional rivals Australia, but it was enough to give them the points to qualify along with South Africa

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In the zone play-offs, Spain, England, France, Netherlands and Italy were the contenders for two World Cup qualifying places. Italy was able to field a team only by bringing in Argentine pros who, by virtue of ancestry, had obtained Italian passports.

While this is allowed under FIP dual nationality rules, disquiet settled amongst the other players over having to compete against a team of one native Italian and three Argentine imports.

England and host country Spain were favourites from the start. In the 2004 World Cup, England had lost the championship to Brazil only by a golden goal in overtime. In this year’s play-offs, Spain were on their home turf, with ponies fresh from Santa Maria’s Easter tournaments. Spain’s skipper was veteran pro Nacho Domecq and the team was coached by former Argentine 10-goaler Benjamin Araya.

With £65,000 in funding from the HPA, England trucked their ponies down to Sotogrande a month before, rented a house and stables and, under coach Claire Tomlinson, practised almost daily at nearby Ayala Polo Club. The preparation paid off and when they met Spain on the final day, England had by then suffered only one defeat, losing by just one goal to Italy.

The deciding match saw England, under captain Tom Morley, coming together as a team as never before. Ed Hitchman opened the scoring in the first minute and England led Spain in every one of the five chukkas, winning 9-6 to qualify for the World Cup. ‘Every member of the team contributed to every goal we scored,’ said coach Tomlinson.

Spain also qualified for Mexico 2008.

New Zealand was host to the first zone play-offs of the year, for countries from Africa, Asia and Oceania. South Africa, India, Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand competed in the eliminations at Auckland Polo Club outside the country’s largest city.

The New Zealand Polo Association and the organising committee under veteran Chris Jones produced one of the best organised of all the FIP events. Effective advance publicity, with the help of title sponsor Fairfax Media, brought some 10,000 spectators out on the final day, one of the biggest FIP crowds ever.

South Africa dominated at Auckland, winning all of their matches and amassing eight points to earn a place in Mexico. New Zealand came second with five points to also qualify for the final stage of the World Cup. The winning team from the Rainbow Nation benefited from its members having extensive high-goal experience in international test matches at home and away, and through playing at top levels in various teams in England. With Gareth Evans as skipper and sterling performances by Ignus and David du Plessis and Tom de Bruin, all under 20, South Africa showed it has become a power in the polo world.

On the final day South Africa racked up their biggest score, defeating India 14-7.5 to

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The play-offs had originally been scheduled at Tecamac Polo Club outside Mexico City, but the Mexican Polo Federation decided to move them to Careyes. In the end Giorgio Brignone, owner and president of the Costa Careyes Polo Club, had less than two months to organise the event, including creating a pool of ponies for the teams to draw from. With Dominican Republic a last minute no-show, Brignone also quickly put together a Mexican team, in which he himself played, to fill out the schedule with unofficial matches against the three FIP teams. With a full round of parties and other activities over the 10 days in the beautiful Careyes resort, Brignone’s organisation of the play-offs won the praise of FIP president Patrick Guerrand Hermes.

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Canada beat Guatemala 12-5.5 and the USA 7-4 to place for Mexico 2008. The Maple Leafs’ Brandon Phillips proved an effective skipper, backed by Marcelo Rodriguez Abbiati, an Argentine-born naturalised Canadian citizen. The USA never jelled as a team, none of their 5-goalers was there, and questions were asked back home about lack of efficient selection and financial backing for a national team from the biggest and richest of all polo nations.

Herbert Spencer flew from Gatwick to Gibraltar, 20 minutes from Sotogrande, with GB Airways, www.gbairways.com. Self-drive car from Avis Gibraltar, www.Avis.com. He was a guest of Santa Maria Polo Club at NH Hotel Sotogrande.

1 France’s best player Brieuc Rigaux 2 Founder of Costa Careyes Gian Franco Brignone and Andrera Nunes 3 Pakistan’s Ahmed Tiwana and Australia’s Matty Grimes 4 Canada’s best player Brandon Phillips 5 England’s George Meyrick and Italy’s Martin Espain Gastaldi

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Golden days of the jubilee The history of polo in India is intricately woven into the culture and folklore of Rajasthan – known throughout the world as the home of polo and famous for its immortal legends of patriotism, sacrifice and valour. Since 1887, the local traditions have greatly influenced this fascinating game and it’s a matter of pride that today most of the high-handicap players in India are from Rajasthan.

No account of polo in Rajasthan would be complete without acknowledging the contribution of Rajputana Polo Club, formed in 1901 with the support of the various Rajputana States. In 1957, during India’s postindependence period, which saw the formation of the state of Rajasthan, the Rajputana Polo Club was rechristened the Rajasthan Polo Club. His Late Highness Maharaja Sawai Man Singh (Jai to his friends), arguably one of the finest polo players of his time, with a handicap of nine, was the club’s first president.

He led the Jaipur Polo team to the rare distinction of winning all the major European tournaments for three years running until 1933. With him in the team were polo legends Rao Raja Hanut Singh – who was another 9goaler – Maharaj Prithi Singh and Rao Raja Abhay Singh. In the World Championships of

1957, the Jaipur team, playing as India, won the title at Deauville, France, and also made history as the only occasion when all players in a World Cup-winning team were from the same club.

This March the historic club celebrated its Golden Jubilee (1957-2007). Over 100 guests from around the world attended the grand celebrations that spanned over a week and included an international 12-goal tournament. Teams came from France (led by Patrick Guerrand Hermes, President of FIP), Italy (led by Claudio Giorguitti, President of Cortina Polo Club), New Zealand (led by Tony van den Brink, President of Auckland Polo Club), and two teams from India – the Rajasthan Polo Club and the Indian Army.

The festivities opened with a grand ceremony in which all participants were mounted on decorated and caparisoned elephants and introduced to an audience that included international guests, scions of royal Indian families, corporate leaders, media magnates and, of course, the polo-loving people of Jaipur. The inaugural day culminated in a royal dinner hosted by His Highness Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Singh of Jaipur at the City Palace.

Guests enjoyed scintillating polo in the afternoons and were taken around Jaipur city to see India’s rich architectural wonders such as the Hawa Mahal, City Palace and the Amber and Jaigarh Forts. The evenings were for celebrations, with gala dinners and lavish entertainment hosted by various dignitaries: Maharaja of Jaipur at Jai Mahal Palace; General Sudhir Sharma at the 61st Cavalry Regiment; Her Highness Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur at the Moti Doongri Castle; polo patron Sanjiv Bali at Rani Bagh; polo patron Santi Choudhary at the Royal Elephant Camp; and Maharaj Jai Singh at the Rambagh Palace.

The Loro Piana team, which included Argentine pros Toccalino and Dario Musso, brushed aside stiff opposition by the Rajasthan Polo Club team to enter the finals from one league, while the Army team had to play to its full potential to beat France and New Zealand.

On the day of the finals the 61st Cavalry Regiment entertained guests with a spectacular musical ride. Sowars of this historic cavalry regiment were dressed in full regalia and mounted on smartly turned-out horses for a splendid display of horsemanship.

The finals was a keenly contested game, with the Army playing better than expected

RAJKUMAR SINGH

Crowds and dignitaries flocked to Jaipur for a feast of pageantry and polo, reports Vikram Rathore

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and giving a stiff fight. Eventually, however, it was the Italian team that prevailed, winning the Indiabulls International Polo Tournament 7-6. Their prize was a beautiful trophy presented to the Rajasthan Polo Club by Santi Choudhary of Royal Gems & Arts. Her Highness the Maharani of Jaipur presented the trophy to the Italian team, as well as handing out mementos to all the participants.

To stage the World Polo Championship Finals in India would be a momentous day for our country. This would arouse further enthusiasm for this great game, which now depends on the active support of various people, including the Army, corporations, government and the media. With this support, India will continue to occupy a position of pride in polo’s international arena, and contribute to India’s sporting prestige. Jaipur, Jodhpur, Patiala, the 61st Cavalry and Kashmir – these are names which will forever delight the polo enthusiast. But greater than these is Rajasthan – truly the cradle of the game in India – and particularly in Jaipur.

Vikram Rathore is Honorary Secretary of the Rajasthan Polo Club. For information on playing polo in India, contact jaipurpolo@hotmail.com

1 (From left to right) Royal Gem & Arts’ Santi Choudhary presented at the inaugural dinner, HH Maharaja of Jaipur, FIP President Patrick Guerrand Hermes, HH Maharaja Gaj Singh of Jodpur and HH Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur (seated) 2 Over 20,000 spectators attended the Jubilee 3 The Indian Army’s pipe bands opened and closed the ceremony 4 Players were introduced in royal Rajasthani-style

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hurlingham [ the action ]

Beach polo Polo was given an infusion of glamour and celebrity at the arenastyle beach polo on Florida’s Gold Coast, reports Herbert Spencer Also playing were Switzerland’s Reto Gaudenzi, who first conceived Miami’s beach polo three years ago, and his son Tito. Reto, a long-time player-promoter of the sport, also originated snow polo at St Moritz in the 1980s and has helped organise beach polo in Dubai and snow polo in Kitzbühel, Austria.

Reto is also a former manager of South Beach’s private club Casa Casuarina that now occupies the Versace mansion.

Like Gaudenzi’s other events, the Miami Beach Polo World Cup was sponsor-led, with each team and the cups named after corporate sponsors. The FedEx spectacular kicked off with a parade of players and ponies along the beach north of Ocean Drive, escorted by a collection of sports cars including Lamborghinis, another one of the event’s supporters.

The three-man arena version of polo – with a playing area a tenth the size of a grass ground – puts spectators closer to the action, and the beach event was no exception. Upwards of 500 guests watched from specially-erected stands and marquees and beach-goers in bikinis and trunks

crowded the public areas to watch as white sand flew from under ponies’ hooves.

The three days of polo were given a Miami flavour with glittering parties at The Setai and The Tides hotels. Hip-hop star Pharrell Williams, pop artist Romero Britto and fashion designer Rene Ruiz were among the Miami celebrities attending the event.

On the final day of round-robin matches it was the Audi team of Marc Ganzi, Kris Kampsen and Brandon Phillips that captured the main prize, the La Martina Cup. Australia’s John Gobin of the Frank Crystal/Comcast team was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.

1 & 2 The tournament’s three-man arena version of polo puts spectators closer to the action 3 Pharrell Williams and Tito Gaudenzi 4 (left to right) Ricardo Mansur, Juan Cento (President of FedEx Latin America & Caribbean), Romero Britto and Bruce Orosz (President of ACT Productions)

JORGE BARREIRO

58 59

Miami’s South Beach is one of Florida’s major tourist attractions. There’s the art deco architecture, film stars and fashion models on location, hip nightspots and the mansion where fashion designer Gianni Versace was gunned down – and in April, there is polo on the white Atlantic sands.

For this year’s FedEx Miami Beach Polo World Cup, organisers Polo Lifestyle fenced off an arena on the sands below The Setai hotel and brought high-goal professional players and their ponies down from Palm Beach to stage three days of three-a-side polo against a backdrop of glamorous cruise ships and sailing crafts.

Six teams comprising professional and amateur players were represented from seven countries: USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Switzerland.

A star attraction among the pros was 10goaler Gonzalo Pieres, taking time out from playing with Neil Hirsch’s Black Watch team at the International Polo Club Palm Beach up the coast. He was joined by fellow Argentine Juan Bollini and American pros John Gobin, Tommy Biddle and Kris Kampsen.

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The FedEx spectacular kicked off with a parade of players and ponies along the beach north of Ocean Drive, escorted by a collection of sports cars including Lamborghinis

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Desert polo

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Times are hard in the California desert, reports Steve Crowder

Capital won the first chukka, which were then followed by two ties. The fourth chukka – worth three – was also won by Windsor Capital, and the last two were tied. In an over-time chukka with double-wide posts it was a pass from the Palomino to Fast-Etta for the run to the golden goal.

Will 2008 be the same? We at IPC hope all eyes are on the new La Quinta Polo Club and the return of the Empire Polo Club, as it may be the answer to western winter Polo.

1 Teams at the start of the Barbara Sinatra Skins Game 2 Windsor Capital/Grants Farm, winners of the 16-goal tournament LYNN BREMNER

It has been a weird year for polo in the California desert. It started under a cloud as the coldest January in the state’s history.

Another problem was the sale of the polo club, with a real estate market in a slump.

The club is a miserable one in need of a face-lift - what was supposed to be a classic 50th anniversary instead looked like 50 years ago. No money was spent on anything: grass, grounds or the winners’ bronzes.

We have a chance to become the capital of super low-goal polo, with about eight teams in each of the 0, 3 and 4-goal brackets. But turnout at the six-goal Governor’s Cup tournament was poor, with only 12 teams (there are usually about 30).

I believe the low-goal menu is killing polo in California. The best polo we had was 16goal and we had only five teams in February, which was the best month.

Windsor Capital/Grants Farm swept the 16-goal tournaments, including winning the Barbara Sinatra Skins Game, which is the tournament’s finals. It is played in a fun format – each chukka is a game and, in the event of a tie, it is carried over until someone wins. Sunday’s finals went that way. Windsor

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hurlingham [directory]

Since 1890, the United States Polo Association has been the governing body for the sport of polo, committed to providing membership services to polo players and polo clubs across the country. Polo is a powerful combination of horse and rider, embodying breathtaking skill, fierce determination, gracious sportsmanship and, above all, a tradition unique to the world of equestrian sports. Join today and belong to a dedicated group of men and women who are members of the USPA.

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS N Player handicap rating and membership card N Polo Plus discounts on products/services including Dodge,

John Deere, Sherwin Williams, Budget and UPS Insurance coverage: $1 million excess participant liability Subscription to the monthly POLO Players’ Edition magazine USPA Annual Yearbook & Membership Directory Rules and Rules Interpretation Handbook Access to affiliate services including history on the sport, instructional clinics, umpire certification and much more N Discounted membership programs for non-playing Associate and Student Members N N N N N

ALEX PHOTOGRAPHY

Join a polo club near you at www.uspolo.org

4037 I RONWORKS P KWY MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION

S UITE 110 L EXINGTON , KY 40511 800.232.USPA OR USPA @ USPOLO . ORG

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hurlingham [ directory]

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sporting art 64

Sculptor Herbert Haseltine captured his love of the game in an elegant masterpiece WORDS NIGEL À BRASSARD

I write this article not because I claim to be a critic of Herbert Haseltine’s art but because I am an admirer of his work. I have lived for some years with a bronze of Haseltine’s Monty Waterbury on Cobnut in my drawing room and a bronze of the racehorse Easter Hero at my London club. To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill: ‘I might say with greater truth that the horses have lived with me, for they have seemed far more than mere representatives of horses in bronze.’

Herbert Haseltine was an American, born in Rome in 1877. After Harvard University he studied painting and drawing in Germany, Italy and France. He painted and drew what he knew best, and his subjects often reflected his own polo and hunting activities.

He wrote about this period of his work: ‘I was unconsciously studying the conformation and movement of horses, which served as a foundation for more serious work in later years.’ In 1905, Haseltine sought advice from the painter Aimé Morot, who encouraged Haseltine to try sculpture.

He had seen Haseltine’s sketch of two polo players galloping after a ball and suggested he should make a model of it one-third life size. Haseltine’s polo-playing friend Pad Rumsey posed as one rider and, not finding a second model, Haseltine ‘posed in the mirror trying to work at the same time’. The

result, Riding Off, was accepted for the 1906 Paris Salon and received an Honourable Mention as well as orders for replicas.

Commissions for new works followed and included a second bronze called Polo, completed in 1907, a copy of which is on display in a New York club. In 1908 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a sculptor herself and patron of the arts, took her husband Harry Payne Whitney to see Haseltine’s work in Paris. The following year Whitney invited Haseltine to come to America to execute a group portrait of his Meadowbrook polo team. This team was never defeated and is known as ‘The Big Four’. They represented America in the Westchester Cup against Britain in 1909, 1911 and 1913, winning on each occasion.

The Meadowbrook Team MCMIX at the Hurlingham Club is a dark brown patinated bronze sculpture and depicts the players on horseback 18 inches high. It is cast on a bronze base measuring 36 by 24 inches, mounted on an Italian portor marble plinth. The work is done in the French animalier style with close detailing of the equipment and the anatomy of the horses. The work reveals Haseltine’s intimate familiarity with the sport of polo and its elegance. Leading the group of players is Devereux Milburn on The Roan Mare, followed by Harry Whitney on Cotton Tail, Larry Waterbury on Little Mary, and lastly Monty Waterbury on Cobnut.

Haseltine modelled the group at the Whitneys’ Long Island estate and the bronzes were cast in 1911 by the Valsuani foundry in Paris using the cire perdue method. There are two surviving castings of this work. One was given by the Whitney family to the Hurlingham Club and is displayed at their clubhouse in London and the other is in a private collection in America. The Racquet and Tennis Club in New York had on loan individual models of the players which were probably maquettes done by Haseltine before he made the final work.

These figures were reclaimed by the Whitney Museum several years ago.

Smaller bronzes of the figures of Monty Waterbury and Devereux Milburn were given by the Hurlingham and Meadowbrook clubs to each member of the British and American teams competing for the Westchester Cup in 1921 and 1924.

The Meadowbrook Team is arguably the greatest polo bronze of all. Churchill praised Haseltine’s work as ‘a joy to behold. His horses are above all for the delectation of those who, like himself, have loved and understood horses, and he certainly need fear no adverse criticism from rider or trainer.’ Praise indeed from a man who played polo himself and who is remembered for his dictum, ‘a polo handicap is your passport to the world’.

PAUL TERRY

hurlingham [archive]

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Stanford Group/USPA Silver Cup Texas Open Charity Polo Day at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in aid of The British Forces Foundation Stanford Field at The International Polo Club Palm Beach

8

hurlingham polo association magazine

Sponsor: The Stanford U.S. Open Polo Championship

SUMMER 2007

polo association magazine

© 2007 Stanford Financial Group

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WOMEN ON TOP [polo’s female revolution] POLO WITH ALTITUDE [Pakistan’s Shandor spectacular] CUPS THAT CHEER [polo’s greatest trophies] DICKY SANTAMARINA [a legend remembered]