Summer 2016

HURLINGHAM P OL O M AG A Z I N E

S U M M E R 2 016

THE AMERICAN SEASON

GLORIOUS REIGN Celebrating Her Majesty’s 90th birthday

01 COVER SUMMER 16.indd 1

03/06/2016 12:39

The private bank for polo Proud sponsors of: EFG Aravali Team, UK High Goal Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup 40 Goal Challenge, Palm Beach Guards Polo Club Cowdray Park Polo Club RMA Sandhurst Polo Veytay Masters, Switzerland Singapore Polo Club, League Haryana Polo Club, Delhi Thai Polo Open Kakira Nile Polo Club Guards International São Paulo Polo Trophy Apes Hill, Barbados

facebook.com/EFGInternational

Photo: David Lominska

EFGI - Polo - Eng - 210+210x285 mm +6 mm bleed - Q - Publication : EFGI_Hurlingham_Spring 2016 issue (25.05.2016)

A private bank unlike any other.

A record of dynamic growth.

Built on giving clients the service they expect and deserve.

Practitioners of the craft of private banking

EFG is the marketing name for EFG International and its subsidiaries. EFG International’s global private banking network includes offices in Zurich, Geneva, London, Channel Islands, Luxembourg, Monaco, Madrid, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei, Miami, Nassau, Grand Cayman, Bogotá and Montevideo. www.efginternational.com

Reverso Tribute Calendar watch Eduardo Novillo Astrada, polo Champion, Winner of the Argentine Triple Crown.

HURLINGHAM

CONTENTS

08 Ponylines The latest news from the world of polo, including the Chief Executive’s column 16

old standard G Liz Higgins looks ahead to the JaegerLeCoultre Gold Cup, now in its 60th year

GREG AUGER; LILAPHOTO/LILAPHOTOS.COM; TIM GRAHAM/ FOX PHOTOS/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

18 Pastures new As the IPC in Florida changes hands, speculation is rife about its future

24

George A ‘Frolic’ Weymouth Melanie Vere Nicoll remembers the charismatic philanthropist and sportsman

orse power 26 H When he isn’t behind the wheel of a car, Freddie Hunt is on the back of a horse 28

Lifestyle Give your wishlist a makeover with the latest luxuries from high-end brands

John Wright CBE 20 Brigadier Fond memories of one of the great figures in the world of polo

30 J oe Meyer The new chairman of the USPA has strategic plans aplenty

alancing act 22 B Interscholastic polo is the toughest test of rider and player, says Jed Cogan

32

SHOW MEDIA Editorial Managing Director Peter Howarth 1-2 Ravey Street, London EC2A 4QP + 44 (0) 20 3222 0101 info@showmedialondon.com; showmedialondon.com

HURLINGHAM MAGAZINE Publisher Roderick Vere Nicoll Executive Editor Peter Howarth Editor Arabella Dickie Contributing Photographer Tony Ramirez Editor-At-Large Alex Webbe Art Editor Julia Allen Chief Copy Editor Eirwen Oxley Green Deputy Chief Copy Editor Gill Wing Copy Editors Kristin Braginetz, Mikey Fullalove Web Editor Darlene Ricker

HURLINGHAM MEDIA Sales +44 (0) 771 483 6102 hurlingham@hpa-polo.co.uk; hurlinghampolo.com Colour reproduction Rhapsody; rhapsodymedia.co.uk Printing Gemini Press; gemini-press.co.uk

stable companion A Wendy Williams discovers our bond with horses is deeper than people think

38

ree reign F Lord Patrick Beresford celebrates the Queen’s love of all things equine

polo at Princeton 44 Reviving But can it ever be the same?

49 Action Reports on the CV Whitney Cup; the USPA Gold Cup; the US Open; the 20-goal season in the US; the Dubai Gold Cup Series; the FIP Snow Polo World Cup; the Copa de las Naciones; the PTF International Cup; the National 12-Goal; the Copa República; and the International at Hickstead 66

Cream of the crop The Polo Club du Domaine de Chantilly

HURLINGHAM P OL O M AG A Z I N E

S U M M E R 2 016

THE AMERICAN SEASON

Cover: Her Majesty The Queen at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 1968. Photographed by Tim Graham/Getty Images

GLORIOUS REIGN Celebrating Her Majesty’s 90th birthday

01 COVER SUMMER 16.indd 1

03/06/2016 12:39

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. The HURLINGHAM Polo Association magazine (ISSN 1750-0486) is published by Hurlingham Media. The magazine is designed and produced on behalf of Hurlingham Media by Show Media Ltd. It is published on behalf of the Hurlingham Polo Association by Hurlingham Media. The products and services advertised are not necessarily endorsed by or connected with the publisher or the Hurlingham Polo Association. The editorial opinions expressed in this publication are those of individual authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or the Hurlingham Polo Association. Hurlingham magazine welcomes feedback from readers: hurlinghammedia@hpa-polo.co.uk

follow @hurlinghampolo

5 CONTENTS MF BD EOG.indd 5

5

06/06/2016 11:43

HURLINGHAM

FOREWORD RODERICK VERE NICOLL – PUBLISHER

The summer issue is all about celebration.

At the top of the list – and on our cover – is HM Queen Elizabeth II, who recently turned 90. In Features, Patrick Beresford looks back on her perennial presence, her involvement with polo and her love of horses. Another feature by former player Wendy Williams explores the extraordinary bond between humans and horses, a partnership that spans the course of evolution. In Talk, Liz Higgins writes of the 60th anniversary of the Gold Cup, which is sponsored by Jaeger-LeCoultre.

This year, the watchmaker celebrates the 85th anniversary of its iconic Reverso timepiece.

On a sadder note, Brigadier John Wright died in early May. He commanded the Queen’s Royal Lancers and was an ex-chairman of the HPA. Robert A de By writes of his passion for the game, from the grass roots to high goal.

My first polo tournaments were the Gerald Balding and the Tar Baby at the Brandywine

Polo Club. They were started by Frolic Weymouth, who also recently passed away.

Frolic was a good horseman and polo player, an accomplished artist, a philanthropist and a conservationist. Both John and Frolic were exceptional people and will be missed by many.

In Action, we have extensive coverage of the 20- and 26-goal tournaments at the International Polo Club in Palm Beach. Next door is Grand Champions, where we have written about the PTF International Cup and the US$50,000 12-goal. We then take a world tour, reporting on tournaments in China, Argentina, England and Dubai.

There is no one in the world of polo who loves the game and has done more for the sport than Steve Orthwein. Sadly he had a bad fall riding. We all wish him well and hope he is back ‘in the tack’ soon.

For all the latest polo news and action, visit hurlinghampolo.com.

Wendy Williams is a lifelong equestrian who has enjoyed a 30-year career in science-writing. Her features have appeared in the likes of The New York Times, and she recently published her sixth book, The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion. She has owned several horses and is currently in the process of acquiring another.

06

6 FOREWORD KB BD EOG.indd 6

Dr Nikolas T Weissmueller is an oncology asset strategy manager at Bristol-Myers Squibb and a research collaborator at Princeton. A Harvard graduate, he discovered his passion for polo while pursuing graduate studies at Oxford. In 2014, he revived the polo programme at Princeton and has been spearheading its development ever

Jed Cogan is a junior at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in Riverdale, New York. He started riding at age seven as a hunter/jumper, but switched to polo at 13. He plays in the summer at the Southampton Polo Club, will be captain of the Country Farms Interscholastic team for the 2016–17 season, and hopes to continue his polo career in college.

Robert A de By has played polo for over two decades. He leads Connon Wood’s international arbitration practice and is the legal counsel for the Federation of International Polo. He shares his family’s polo team, Jacaranda, with his twin brother. They are based at Guards and also play at Ham and, in winter, at their estancia in Argentina.

POLOPICTURES.CO.UK

CONTRIBUTORS

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

PONYLINES

y BEACH POLO WORLD CUP Fourteen polo teams returned to Miami Beach for the ninth annual Beach Polo World Cup. The action began on 25 April with a kick-off party at The Raleigh Hotel, introducing the eight women’s teams that would do battle the following day in the Maserati South Beach Women’s Polo Cup. The Heys USA team took the top honours while the Bulgari team finished first in the lower bracket. A press party introducing the six men’s entries was held that evening. Two days of play took place in the flooded and by 11am it was decided to cancel the finals. A Monday match was arranged 11am it was decided to cancel the finals. A Monday match was arranged between Yellow Cab andault. Despite the disappointment of the finals being rained off, players and patrons alike made to return 201hen rains came. The sand arena was flooded and by 11am it was decided to cancel the finals. A Monday match was arr 160 words. Alex Webbe

ONE TO WATCH

DAVID LOMINSKA/POLOGRAPHICS.COM

y BEACH POLO WORLD CUP Fourteen polo teams returned to Miami Beach for the ninth annual Beach Polo World Cup. The action began on 25 April with a kick-off party at The Raleigh Hotel, Following Orchard Hill’s 13–12 win over Dubai to take the introducing the eight women’s teams 2016 that US Open Championship, Steve Van Andel, left, had a would do battle the following day big in the smile on his face. It was the first Open win for his Orchard Maserati South Beach Women’s Hill Poloteam, Cup.who made it to the finals in 2001, 2002, 2006 The Heys USA team took the top and honours 2015, but the change over the past two years has while the Bulgari team finished first been in impressive. the Following the 2014 season, Van Andel lower bracket. A press party introducing contracted theboth Facundo Pieres and his cousin Polito in six men’s entries was held that evening. an effort Two to make a serious bid for the silver in 2015, and it days of play took place in the 12-goal paid off. Combining this with several spare horses acquired competition. By virtue of net goals, forthe the team pros, Orchard Hill made it to the final of all Maserati team were eliminated and three the26-goal Yellow tournaments, winning the CV Whitney Cup. Cab v The Raleigh finals were set when Additional the horses were acquired again in 2015 and the rains came. The sand arena was team flooded continued and to click. Orchard Hill won the CV Whitney Monday match was arranged between Cup again Yellow this year, but lost in the semi-finals of the Gold Cab and The Raleigh, but player logistics Cup afterdid Polito Pieres’ absence due to a shoulder injury. defen’s entries was held that arena Orchard was Hill reloaded with 10-goaler Juan Martín Nero, flooded and by 11am it was decidand while offthe they went. The US Open win has been a long time Bulgari team finished first in the ed coming, to cancel but with Facundo and Polito Pieres returning in the finals. A Monday match was arr 2017, evening.

Van Andel could well be on a roll. Alex Webbe Two days of play took place 12-goal 175 words. Alex Webbe

8

8 ONE TO WATCH KB EOG BD.indd 8

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

17387 Steinway Hurlingham (June)_Layout 1 24/05/2016 16:16 Page 2

Me r g i n g p r e c i s i o n & p a s s i o n . E x p e r i e n c e & e x p r e s s i o n . A r t i s t & a u d i e n c e . O n e n a m e h a s been hand-crafting pianos to perfection for perfectionists, by artisans for ar tists for over 1 6 0 y e a r s . A n d m a k i n g i t p o s s i b l e f o r y o u t o c l o s e y o u r e y e s & s o a r.

STEINWAY HALL

L O N D O N Q Q = ã ~ êó ä É Ä ç å É = ä ~ å É I= ä ç å Ç ç å = ï N ì O Ç Ä

Ñ ç ê = ã ç ê É = á å Ñ ç ê ã ~í á ç å = ç ê = í ç = ~ ê ê ~ å Ö É = ~ = é ê á î~í É = ~ é é ç á å í ã É å í = ~í = ç ì ê = ä ç å Ç ç å = ë Ü ç ï ê ç ç ã ë I = é ä É ~ ë É = Å ~ ä ä W

0 2 0 7 4 8 7 3 3 9 1 ç ê = É ã ~ á ä = á å Ñ ç ] ë í É á å ï~óK Å ç K ì â

PONYLINES POLO NEWS FROM ACROSS THE WORLD

CHIEF EXECUTIVE I begin this foreword on a sad note. John Wright handed over as Chairman of the HPA to Stephen Hutchinson a month early in October last year, so that he could undergo treatment to fight cancer. Sadly, he lost the battle at the beginning of May. A champion of polo, he always had the interests of the game, first and foremost, at heart. John will be hugely missed and our sympathies go out to his wife Christiane and the rest of his family.

As far as the game is concerned, there have been two big events recently: the Copa de las Naciones, played at Palermo, and the Bryan Morrison Trophy, played at AEPC Hickstead.

Congratulations and thanks are due to the players, and in particular Christopher Hanbury, who agreed to field and fund his El Remanso team to represent England.

For some years, we have all been trying to produce a set of unified rules, and there has been some scepticism as to whether it would ever happen. There is much work still to be done, but the new format has been well received, as has the new ‘sin bin’ rule.

Looking forward to the English season, the high-goal looks to be reasonable in terms of numbers, with 12 teams in The Queen’s Cup, and hopefully the same or more in the Gold Cup. On the international front, an England team will play Ireland at the Beaufort Polo Club on Saturday 18 June as part of the Gloucestershire Festival of Polo, and England Ladies will play Argentina Ladies the next day at Cirencester.

For the Coronation Cup at Guards Polo Club, England will play the Commonwealth on 23 July at roughly 26 goals. Both teams have yet to be selected, but it is hoped that the Commonwealth team will be made up of players from four different continents.

Let us hope for a good summer weather-wise, and that not too many players end up in the sin bin.

10

10 15 PONYLINES KB BD EOG.indd 10

{ THE HARRIMAN CUP AWARD During the finals of the US Open in April, Yale and University of Virginia alumni gathered to present the Harriman Cup Award to Neil Hirsch (centre left, with Steve Orthwein, Liz Brayboy and Joe Meyer). The award honours individuals who embody the leadership, public service and staunch support for equestrian sports that were characteristics of Averell Harriman, a Yale graduate and polo player who was Governor of New York, US Ambassador to Great Britain and the Soviet Union, and US Secretary of Commerce under President Truman.

Loanet founder Hirsch owns the Black Watch polo team and has been a committed supporter of Yale Polo and the Boys & Girls Club of America.

The Harriman Cup, currently in its 32nd year, takes place at Bethpage State Park on Long Island. The charity day, which will be held on 17 September, benefits both Yale and UVA. Tickets are available via harrimancup.org. Liz Brayboy

{ POLO CLUB SAINT-TROPEZ Under the leadership of its new owner, Mr Alshair Fiyaz, the Polo Club SaintTropez is set to become a benchmark on the international circuit and earn its place among the top five polo clubs in the world.

Set in more than 245 acres, surrounded by forests and the harbour and beaches of Saint-Tropez, the club offers four polo fields in top-quality Tifton turf, a stick-and-ball field, a 1,180ft training course, a new indoor arena and more than 350 environmentally friendly ‘eco’ stalls for horses. Accommodation comprises nine luxury villas for players and their families, and 19 apartments equipped for the stable staff. The new restaurant, Polo 1999, offers Argentine and Peruvian cuisine prepared by top chefs, from Tuesday to Sunday for lunch and dinner.

In 2016, 13 tournaments will take place at the Polo Club Saint-Tropez, including two high-goal tournaments in August. Sareena Gujadhur

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:37

Piaget Altiplano 1205P

altiplano.piaget.com

PONYLINES

HOOKED ON POLO

{ GULFSTREAM POLO CLUB CLOSES On 3 May, Atlantic Western Realty Corporation announced the sale of Gulfstream Polo Club and several surrounding privately owned horse farms. The club was known for its friendly, low-key atmosphere. ‘This is truly a club for members who join for fun’, said club president Randy Aversano, in an interview with the Palm Beach Post in 2013.

Atlantic Western’s Jay Romfh, whose father was one of the founders of Gulfstream Polo, said: ‘Unfortunately the sale, while successful, also represents the closure of one of the most important polo clubs in the US. Offering competitive polo from 16-goal to low-goal, including the hysterical Alligator Open, Gulfstream was a one-of-a-kind club.’

Brad Scherer, president of Atlantic Western, is of the opinion that ‘the club did more for polo and polo players of all levels in its lifetime than probably any club in US history’. At approximately US$49m, the transaction marks one of the largest land deals this year in Palm Beach County.

12

10 15 PONYLINES KB BD EOG.indd 12

Peter Brant, founder of Greenwich Polo Club, is a prominent businessman, collector and advocate of the arts.

He is an avid player and patron.

Tommy Glynn introduced me to indoor polo. He went on to manage Greenwich Polo Club into his nineties. Gonzalo Pieres passed on a wealth of knowledge. Other mentors include Benny Gutierrez, who captained White Birch, and Hector Barrantes, its manager in the early days.

My favourite part of any polo match is the last half of the sixth chukka, when everything is on the line. My adrenaline kicks into overdrive and gives me the strength to play my heart out.

My most memorable game was when we lost the US Open Final to the Gracida brothers, playing for Aspen, in 1994. We’d just taken the lead, with 40 seconds left, when the official blew the whistle for a delay of game call. Bautista Heguy, playing for White Birch, had run so fast through the goal his horse couldn’t stop and its front legs went over a hedge. The umpire threw the ball in and Carlos Gracida tied the game. We lost in overtime.

This year, I was excited to return to the International Polo Club for 20- and 26-goal tournaments. Though I enjoy playing in Florida, I’m eager to return to Greenwich, where I’ll be playing with White Birch.

We’re going into our 35th season here and are partnering again with the USPA to host the East Coast Open. The matches will be live-streamed and the finals broadcast on NBCSN. This type of exposure is great because it really gets new fans interested.

BRENDA LYNN/MUSEUM OF POLO; CHICHI UBINA

{ ARTE CAREYES Mercedes-Benz, Aeromexico, GNP and Makken were the title sponsors of the 2016 Arte Careyes tournament. In the finals, the GNP team was favoured over Makken’s, as they had won the previous day, but, with just seconds left, a couple of costly fouls

by GNP and an end-to-end goal by Raul Ramirez tied the score 7–7. Moments before the final bell sounded, Ramirez scored again, leading Makken to victory, 8–7.

The Careyes Club is considered the leading polo club in Mexico for the quality of its tournaments. It offers two irrigated fields, barns for more than 250 horses and riding trails to the jungle and nearby Teopa beach.

Concluding the club’s 2015–16 polo season in style was the 5th annual Arte Careyes film festival. Films from Spain, Bosnia, Argentina, Colombia, the USA and Mexico were shown daily in the Plaza de los Caballeros del Sol. Guests included John Cooper, chair of the Sundance Film Festival, and actor Diego Luna. careyes.com

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:37

1929 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Architect and Furniture Designer 2014 Barcelona ® Collection

Celebrate 75 years of iconic design, from pioneering modernist vision to bold contemporary designs for home and office. Always timeless. Always true. www.knolleurope.com Knoll Showroom: 1 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7EX, T. 020 7236 6655

Knoll_Hurligham_210x285_barcelona.indd 1

17/05/16 13:36

PONYLINES

CHUKKAS

x BOOK LAUNCH: POLO LIFE: HORSES, SPORT, 10 AND ZEN BY ADAM SNOW AND SHELLEY ONDERDONK Polo Life delves into the world of high-goal polo through the lenses of former 10-goaler Adam Snow and his wife, veterinarian Shelley Onderdonk. Less polo manual than humaninterest story, the chapters cover a range of topics: there is a horse so good she probably single-handedly challenged Adam’s career, and a farm named after the city where the couple met. The book is filled with humour, humility and insight. Adam recounts his childhood obsession with balls; Shelley, hers with horses. Adam tells how a chance meeting with a mental coach helped turn his career around; Shelley explains how her intuition and acupuncture translated into longevity and awards for many of these equestrian athletes.

Theirs is a story of how a partnership centred on horses actually worked. pololife.co

Last summer, the King Power Foxes team – backed by Leicester City FC owners – won both the Queen’s Cup and the Gold Cup in England. In May, Leicester City won the prestigious Premier League in English football. The bookies had given them 5000–1 odds to win. The Leicester City Foxes had a low budget of £57 million, versus the average £290 million for the past five previous title-winning sides. They won not with a collection of superstars, but with real team effort, restoring a sense of idealism, optimism and romance to the game. We could use a bit of this in polo.

Yale Polo Club announced that Team USPA member Branden Van Loon had joined their programme as head coach/manager.

An alumni of Cornell University, Van Loon played intercollegiate/interscholastic polo extensively before he joined Team USPA. He will run the business (managing revenues and expenses), teach and coach, manage the care and maintenance of the horses and participate in fundraising. In 2014, Yale Polo Club bought a new facility with donations from alumni and friends and a loan from the USPA. This is a new model and could be applied to other intercollegiate programmes, which are a good way to introduce players to the game.

See our feature on Princeton, p44

The Coupe du Domaine de Chantilly celebrated the club’s 20th anniversary in May. There were 12 teams of amateurs, and the format was games of two chukkas on the first day, followed by four-chukka games on Saturday. Sadly, the finals were cancelled due to rain. The hospitality included dinner, a banquet and lunches. A great formula that should be emulated more often!

The 11th Federation of International Polo (FIP) World Polo Championship will take place from 17 to 30 October 2017 in Sydney, Australia. FIP has teamed up with organiser and host venue Sydney Polo Club and its strategic partner, the New South Wales government’s tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW. The world-class tournament will commence on 21 October, with the final scheduled to take place on 29 October. Eight international teams will compete in Sydney for the World Champion title, including a team from host nation Australia, and the current world champions, Chile.

14

10 15 PONYLINES KB BD EOG.indd 14

y JUNIOR NACIONES Following Northwood’s win of the Hipwood section of the Junior HPA last August, this year’s Junior England team qualified to play in the Copa de las Naciones at Palermo in April. The winning Northwood team consisted of Will Harper, Luke Wiles and Ned and Milly Hine, but the line-up had suffered a blow only weeks before leaving, when Milly Hine received the news she was unable to play due to a stress fracture in her back. The remaining players were therefore very grateful to Jimbo Fewster, who joined them at short notice.

Following numerous postponements in the lead-up to the Copa de las Naciones, the junior tournament was eventually played as a round robin on 23 April. Junior England had a great day, but narrowly lost against the Rest of the World and then Argentina.

Both opposition teams had older players, and the Argentine team were the 2015 Podrillos winners, so all credit to the English boys for getting so close. Robyn Hine

y RETIREMENT FOR WEMBLEY The legendary Wembley (Catisfield Kid x Darkie) was honoured in a ceremonial retirement bowl-in at the 2016 US Open final, after which he took his final lap around the field under Alejo Taranco, who rode him in the US 20-goal season.

The 23-year-old gelding competed in numerous US Opens and was named Horse of the Year in 2004. He was named BPP in the 2016 Ylvisaker Cup semi-final and was the first recipient of the Wembley Award, which was established by the IPC in 2013 to honour horses displaying exceptional ability and longevity in high-goal polo.

Owned by Valiente, the black thoroughbred has been ridden by many high-goal players.

Memo Gracida, who played him for several years, said, ‘I knew he was special after the first 50 yards I rode him.’ Wembley has two clones, one of them born the day Valiente won the 2015 US Open. Darlene Ricker

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:37

PONYLINES

LOVE OF MY LIFE PONY’S NAME: NARVAJA SEX: MARE ORIGIN: FLORIDA

SADDLE UP WITH NAME: JESSE BRAY CITIZENSHIP: AMERICAN POLO HANDICAP: 4-GOAL When did you start playing polo?

I’ve been playing for as long as I can remember. My Dad is a professional, and I’ve really enjoyed following in his footsteps.

I was born in New Zealand but spent most of my childhood in California. I played at the Eldorado Polo Club and in San Diego.

I started professionally aged 16, and went full-time after finishing high school. I’m now playing in Santa Barbara and Wellington.

In the past year I’ve played pro polo, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20-goal.

Narvaja was a homebred that Roberto Narvaja of Wellington, Florida, bred and trained. She was out of a Wesley Pitcock mare called 80 and by a good stallion owned

by Julie Shirley at Gulfstream Polo Club. She was played by Peter Brant and by various White Birch Farm team players through the years.

White Birch Farm donated her to the Yale Polo operation in 2015, where she added arena play to her skill set. She won the Best Playing Pony awards in three preliminary tournaments at the new Yale Polo facility, as well as in the National Intercollegiate men’s tournament in April, where the best US intercollegiate teams come to compete.

With her amazingly quick turns, and the heart that she puts into each chukka, Narvaja is a star partner to have on the polo field. Leighton Jordan and Liz Brayboy

RBPRESSE; ELIZABETH HEDLEY; BRANDEN VAN LOON; DAVID LOMINSKA/ POLOGRAPHICS.COM

What makes the sport special to you?

I love being involved with horses – the feeling of buying them, making them your own and fitting them to your style of play.

Being well-mounted is very important to me, so I try to improve my string every season. Polo is also a great family sport – everyone gets involved.

Who do you respect most in polo?

My Dad. He works harder than anyone I’ve ever known. He got to a 7-goal handicap, so my goal is to get to eight!

What have you played this year?

I won the Joe Barry Memorial 20-goal tournament, made it to the semi-finals of the Ylvisaker 20-goal tournament and won the 12-goal US$50,000 tournament at Grand Champions, where I was awarded MVP. Winning that tournament was a huge accomplishment. Being able to participate in all three tournaments with other young players made for a memorable season.

{ CHANTILLY, FRANCE V ARGENTINA Confirmed on the morning, but cancelled just before noon due to rain, the eagerly anticipated encounter on 22 May between France and Argentina at Chantilly finally played, thanks to the players’ tenacity. After a discussion between the two team captains, France’s Brieuc Rigaux commented: ‘The crowd has come just for this game. We agree with the Argentines that we have to try to play four or five chukkas.’

Kick-off for the ‘improvised’ game was finally given just after 3pm, despite the pouring rain. In far from ideal conditions, it was the French team that, in the end, admitted defeat. Rigaux summed up the game: ‘We held strong at the beginning, but then we gave the Argentines too many moments to take the advantage. Our plan of defence, especially on Pancho Bensadon, didn’t hold – too often, he was isolated, so he could organise his game as he pleased. Argentina has more players used to top-level play than us, but today, it’s clear that the difference in the quality of our horses really had an impact, too.’

follow @hurlinghampolo

10 15 PONYLINES KB BD EOG.indd 15

15

03/06/2016 12:37

TALK

GOLD STANDARD On the 60th anniversary of the esteemed Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup, the competition at Cowdray Park is as fierce as ever, writes Liz Higgins

It was a very different world when John Cowdray launched the Gold Cup in 1956, and in its Diamond Jubilee year, he would be both amazed and thrilled to see the assembly of world-class players taking part in the annual celebration of polo that has become the Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup for the British Open Polo Championship.

Sponsors Jaeger-LeCoultre have been closely involved with Cowdray Park since 2006, when it became Official Timekeeper to the club.

The luxury watchmaker extended its support by becoming title sponsors of the Gold Cup in 2015. This year, the brand celebrates the 85th anniversary of its iconic Reverso watch – the

historic timepiece developed in the 1930s specifically for the sporting gentleman who played polo – with a new Reverso collection: the Reverso One is dedicated to femininity; the Reverso Tribute for men has a contemporary Art Deco inspiration; and the Classic collection for men and women introduces an automatic movement on a number of models.

Cowdray Park’s high-goal season opened with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Trippetts Challenge for the James Wentworth Stanley Cup, giving locally based teams a good warm-up for the demanding competition ahead. The La Indiana team of Michael Bickford with Julian de

Lusarreta, Agustin Merlos and Nic Roldan achieved a confidence-boosting win, and as they contemplate the 2016 Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup opening on 21 June, a wider look at all the teams entered reveals some new and very exciting combinations.

Two Jaeger-LeCoultre brand ambassadors are playing, including Luke Tomlinson with Nick Clarke’s Clarke & Green. His side includes Juan Gris Zavaleta and John-Paul Clarkin, making for an evenly matched and powerful combination.

Sir Charles Williams lends the support of his Apes Hill Club, Barbados, to George Hanbury.

The 2016 Apes Hill side also includes Mark

This page 2015 Gold Cup final at Cowdray Opposite Jaeger-LeCoultre ambassadors (from left) Luke Tomlinson, Clare Milford Haven and Eduardo Novillo Astrada

16

16 17 TALK JLC KB BD EOG.indd 16

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:37

IMAGESOFPOLO.COM; ALINE COQUELLE

TALK

Tomlinson, Alec White and Jaeger-LeCoultre ambassador Eduardo Novillo Astrada. The team reached the semi-finals in 2015.

Last year’s winners, King Power, return as King Power Foxes, and Top Srivaddhanaprabha has cannily taken on 17-year-old Jose Ramon Araya, who played so well for UAE in his debut year in the 2015 Gold Cup. He joins the side’s 10-goal stars Gonzalito and Facundo Pieres.

Ben Soleimani has retained the 9-goal skills of Nico Pieres and added a second 9-goaler to his line-up, Brazilian player Rodrigo Andrade. Ali Paterson, no stranger to success in the Gold Cup, completes this powerful side.

Britannia El Remanso is composed of four English professionals brought together by Charlie Hanbury – Ollie Cudmore playing off 5 goals, England captain James Beim (7) and James Harper (6) at the back door. The Pailloncy brothers’ HB Polo team has seen a significant change with the addition of 10-goaler David ‘Pelon’ Stirling playing alongside ‘Cubi’

How fitting that there will be a Cowdray team playing in the cup’s Diamond Jubilee year

Toccalino in the middle order, the side now forming a 22-goal line-up.

Cowdray Park welcomes USA patron Bob Jornayvaz, who brings Valiente to the Gold Cup. With a team comprising Juan Martín Nero, Adolfo Cambiaso and young English player Ralph Richardson, it’s no surprise the team is highly rated. But there will be many who fancy Zacara’s chances: Lyndon Lea has retained talented young Jack Hyde but has also brought in heavyweights Lucas Monteverde and Pablo Mac Donough, who nearly carried off a victory for UAE in 2015.

follow @hurlinghampolo

16 17 TALK JLC KB BD EOG.indd 17

Edouard Carmignac retains Polito Pieres and ‘Sapo’ Caset, both 9 goals in the UK but 10 in Argentina, and has added Tommy Beresford to the Talandracas team. Jean-François Decaux makes a welcome return with his La Bamba de Areco side. He is joined by Cristian Laprida, Diego Cavanagh and Rodrigo Rueda.

How fitting that in the cup’s Diamond Jubilee year, there will be a Cowdray team playing for the first time since 2009. Local support will be huge for Cowdray Vikings and particularly for young George Pearson (2), whose parents, Charles and Lila, have both played in the Gold Cup. George takes the number 1 position with 6-goalers Jack Richardson and Chris Mackenzie in the middle order and Alejandro Novillo Astrada (8) at back.

Sadly, John Cowdray, George’s grandfather, died before he was born, but how satisfied he would have been to witness the worldwide prominence that his wonderful golden trophy has achieved – and that there is once again a Cowdray team taking part.

17

03/06/2016 12:37

TALK

PASTURES NEW

While the 2016 US high-goal season was playing out on the fields of the International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPC), another intense competition was taking place behind closed doors. At stake was the ownership of IPC, which had become the subject of speculation since it was placed on the market several years ago.

The future of polo in Wellington – and along with it, the continued viability of the United States as the reigning winter venue for international polo – hung in the balance.

18

18 19 TALK Sale of IPC KB EOG BD.indd 18

After a protracted bidding war, on 18 March, the news hit: the Goodman family trust had agreed to sell the IPC facilities and surrounding properties, totalling 248 acres, to Mark Bellissimo, CEO of Wellington Equestrian Partners (WEP). WEP owns the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center and operates both the Winter Equestrian and Adequan Global Dressage Festivals.

‘Our partnership wanted to ensure that IPC was going to be protected as a long-term venue for polo and other equestrian sports, which is

key to Wellington’s economy,’ Bellissimo said in announcing the purchase. ‘We are now positioned to achieve a new level of prominence and excellence for the competitor and visitor experience at all our venues. This allows us to establish and showcase Wellington as the world destination for polo, showjumping and dressage.’

Signs of WEP’s interest in expanding into polo were there from the start of the 2016 Florida season, although few could have predicted the extent to which it would reach.

LILA PHOTO; JOSH WALKER

Its future may be uncertain, but the sale of the International Polo Club Palm Beach has already prompted a surge in sponsorship, reports Darlene Ricker

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

TALK

From far left Spectators fill the IPC stands for the 2015 high-goal season; Mark Bellissimo with his wife Katherine

It was the proverbial ‘shot heard round the world’. What would the sale mean for polo?

The sidelines at IPC were abuzz during the 20-goal Joe Barry Cup on 21 January, when word spread during the match between Orchard Hill and Audi/Millarville that WEP had purchased the Wanderers Club (a private golf, tennis, fitness and dining club, which also has a polo field). The purchase gave Bellissimo more property near the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center.

The US$6.8m deal, also with the Goodman family trust, was executed within weeks.

Two months later, in the midst of the 26-goal USPA Gold Cup, the announcement about the IPC deal went public, and the US$72m transaction closed a few days after the US Open final in April. It was the proverbial ‘shot heard round the world’. What would the sale mean for polo, considering WEP has a vested interest in dressage and jumping competitions and that space in Wellington for equestrian events is already at, and in some cases beyond, capacity?

While small portions of IPC have occasionally been rented to hunter/jumper shows, early signs appear promising for polo. Bellissimo has steadfastly vowed that he intends to preserve the sport in Wellington, and the USPA has tournament contracts with IPC to 2018. When it

follow @hurlinghampolo

18 19 TALK Sale of IPC KB EOG BD.indd 19

comes down to details, though, no one will really know for a while what the ‘new’ IPC will look like.

In an interview with Hurlingham two weeks after the IPC sale closed, Bellissimo said he expects to have an organisation and management plan in place by 1 July. He confirmed that additional hiring is anticipated. ‘We have an amazing, strong group of existing staff members, and we want to infuse the team with fresh ideas and innovation,’ he said.

A silver lining to the sale appears to be the likelihood of more money flowing in through corporate sponsorships. Bellissimo is a master at forging top-shelf sponsorship deals, having secured more than 100 sponsors for the Winter Equestrian Festival. Since his purchase of IPC was announced, he said, ‘a record number of sponsors’ have already been in touch.

‘The sport has had a very weak history regarding sponsorship,’ noted Bellissimo. He said he wants to ‘create excitement about the athletes’ – both two- and four-footed – to entice spectators and attract sponsors. That should come as welcome news to the USPA and to patrons, who have long desired a boost in sponsorship numbers.

19

03/06/2016 12:38

TALK

BRIGADIER JOHN WRIGHT CBE There are some voices you never forget. Gentle, but with great flair and a sparkling sense of humour; distinguished above all; unique and quintessentially English, in the best sense.

This was the voice, like no other, that used to break the morning quiet at Tidworth Polo Club and enliven dinner conversations late at night in Buenos Aires. It belonged to Brigadier John Wright – a man who wore his tremendous accomplishments in the military and in polo with light grace and without the slightest pretence.

Commanding the 16th/5th of the Queen’s Royal Lancers, serving as the Chairman of the HPA and on the Executive Committee of the sport’s global governing body, the FIP, were just some of his achievements. His was never a case of a man in need of a role, but the opposite: he put his indelible stamp on each. They will rightly be celebrated in official obituaries still to come.

These were still some years into the future when, on a warm Buenos Aires evening, John Wright returned to the dinner table from having taken a phone call. Understated as he was, his pride was nevertheless palpable and he had a twinkle in his eyes when he told us that his son Peter had just been selected as the first non-Argentine ever to umpire the final of the Argentine Open. He followed the news with a number of insightful observations and humour, much of it self-deprecating. It was typical and entirely unselfish – he was happy not for himself but for his son and for England, the country he had served so well.

We had first met 20 years earlier. John Wright had taken Tidworth, the polo club nestled in the green Wiltshire hills, under his wing. With his formidable organisational talent and by sheer force of personality, he turned it into a glittering success and the English club with the most playing members. But it was still early days then and, with just a few staff, he played virtually all the roles himself, with great aplomb and enthusiasm. Inspiring and encouraging when polo seemed difficult, gently humorous when things got too serious, he was always reminding everyone there was one purpose only: to have fun. A general – as his military rank is known abroad – he was as at home with beginner players at country-pub dinners as watching polo with Her Majesty in his capacity as HPA Chairman, or commanding his troops.

20

20 TALK John Wright obituary EOG BD GW.indd 20

It was his easy charm, the genuine interest in others, the kindness, humour and fairness that made time spent in his company and working together such a pleasure for those who had the good fortune and honour to know John Wright.

It is late April, a sunny day in the Rhine Valley. The garden, with its spectacular view, is filled with blossoming trees. John – stylish as always, in a striped shirt and Panama hat – sits flanked by his elegant wife Christiane and son Peter. He speaks with typical courage,

unflinchingly facing the short time left to him without a speck of self-pity. He says he is slightly concerned that he has not told people clearly what he had hoped, until recently, might have been avoided: that he is going to die soon.

Typically, he is more concerned with the feelings of others than his own fate. It is an amazing display of character and sangfroid. And then he wants to talk about polo, and the world seems sunny and fun again.

Brigadier John Wright died on 4 May 2016

TONY RAMIREZ/IMAGESOFPOLO.COM

With a true passion for polo – from grass roots to high-goal – one of the sport’s greatest enthusiasts will be missed by all who knew him, says Robert A de By

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

thai polo & equestr i a n Club PATTAYA – THAILAND

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

( n ov e m be r - a pr i l)

( n ov e m be r - a pr i l)

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

www.thai-polo-club.com

thaipolo.indd 2

09/05/2013 12:02

TALK

BALANCING ACT A small playing area and split-string format creates a level playing field in interscholastic arena polo, says competitor Jed Cogan

B When one thinks of the sport of polo, you might associate it with the so-called ‘one per cent’ – and, to be honest, I once did too. However, what I’ve experienced over the past two years playing interscholastic polo has been the antithesis of this preconceived notion. Played in a dirt arena more the size of a hockey rink than an outdoor field, the game is a high-contact physical battle of three against three. The distinguishing feature is that the games are all played split-string, with no fancy ponies, so you need to be able to get on anything you tack up and then go out and play.

It’s a true test of rider and player that evens out the competition and takes away the benefit of who has the quicker or handier horse. Polo – more specifically interscholastic arena polo –

22

22 23 TALK Jed Cogan The Nationals KB BD EOG.indd 22

Interscholastic polo is a true test of rider and player that evens out the competition

has been an eye-opening experience for me, as it has taken me places and introduced me to people I would otherwise never have had the opportunity to meet or play with.

Born and bred in New York City, I grew up in a family in which neither of my parents rode.

I came across horseback riding at the age of

seven, while visiting a family friend who summers on a bucolic island between the North and South Forks of Long Island. From ages eight to 13, I competed as a jumper. Following a day of showing at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, I decided to take a polo lesson with Michael Matz. I was hooked. Polo combined my love of horses with the aggressive, high-speed nature of a contact sport. The next summer, I quit competitive jumping in pursuit of this team-oriented game. About a year and a half later, I joined an interscholastic high-school polo team by the name of Country Farms in Medford, New York. Each member of the team comes from a completely different background. One of my teammates, John Vasquez, grew up in a riding

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

hurlingham

TALK

The Country Farms team at the 2016 National finals in Texas (from left): John Vasquez, Jed Cogan, Stavros Lampkos (substitute) and Chris Jordan

family. My other starting teammate, Chris Jordan, is a fellow city-boy, born and raised in Queens. Other than living in the same area, the three of us share few commonalities. However, our mutual love for polo brought us together and eventually led us to successes that we never could have imagined or achieved on our own. Our coach, Bob Ceparano, was tasked with reining in our teenage minds and teaching us the arena game with the hope of creating a successful team.

Across the United States and Canada, there are 44 Interscholastic Open teams made up of both young men and women, as well as 27 girls’ teams, spread across four geographic divisions.

All told, some 300 high-school students compete from September through March to win the USPA Division and National championships.

Beginner’s luck is what I believe brought us to

the Nationals in my first year on the team, as we were chosen as a wildcard entry following our close defeat at the Regionals to a team based in Toronto. After our defeat in the first round of the 2014-2015 Nationals, the three of us vowed to come back stronger and better the following season. We spent our summers practising religiously – Chris in Texas, John in Georgia, and me in Long Island. Our hard work paid off this season, as we were undefeated in our division coming into the Regional Championship against our rivals from Toronto.

Riding on our momentum and heading to the University of Connecticut arena, we dominated our first game and were set to have a rematch in the finals with the team we’d lost to the previous year. The final game was a close back-and-forth match against Toronto, where we jumped to an

early lead in the first half, only to give some of that lead back in the third chukka. We cemented the match in the fourth and final chukka. For the first time in many years, a Country Farms team was the Northeast Regional Champion. John and I won tournament all-star awards, and Chris played his best game all season.

Unfortunately, our fairy-tale season came to an end at the National finals at the ERG arena in Brookshire, Texas. Competing against a strong team from the Western division, we were down by only one goal at the half. But we couldn’t close the gap and our season ended with a three-goal defeat. While this wasn’t the ending we’d worked to achieve, the bonds formed by our two seasons playing together remain, and we look forward to playing with – or against – each other in the intercollegiate game in the years ahead.

BESPOKE SILVERSMITHS Unique Designs Hand Crafted Special Commissions Replica Trophies Silver & Bronze Models

SUITE 16 88 - 90 HATTON GARDEN LONDON EC1N 8PN TELEPHONE +44 (0)20 7404 0487 FAX +44 (0)20 7404 6063 MOBILE 07973 824 464 EMAIL:SANSON@BEZANTLTD.CO.UK WWW.BEZANTLTD.COM 23 follow @hurlinghampolo hurlinghamhires.indd 1 22 23 TALK Jed Cogan The Nationals KB BD EOG.indd 23

16/05/2012 10:46 03/06/2016 12:39

BRANDYWINE CONSERVANCY

TALK

24

24 25 TALK Frolic obituary KB BD EOG.indd 24

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

TALK

Frolic Weymouth (far right) with Yale Polo teammates Peter Jackson and Michael Pouiatine, winning the 1957 National Sherman Memorial Tournament

GEORGE A ‘FROLIC’ WEYMOUTH A much-loved figure on the polo scene, Frolic will be remembered as a man who took life by the reins, says Melanie Vere Nicoll

At the final of the US Open on 24 April, Tony Coppola announced the passing of George A ‘Frolic’ Weymouth the night before. Frolic will be remembered as an artist, philanthropist, conservationist, renowned whip and talented polo player. His wide range of friends would add to this list of accomplishments his kindness, loyalty, wonderful sense of humour and the joie de vivre and zest with which he approached life.

George A Weymouth – known to one and all as Frolic – was a man who never did things by halves. As a sportsman, Frolic began competing in polo, showjumping and coaching at a young age. As a graduation present from Yale University in 1958, he departed for England with a team of college all-stars (P Baldwin, S Woolaway and R Riemenschneider) and spent the summer months playing mostly at Cowdraybased tournaments. When he realised that the team’s ponies were not quite up to standard, he replenished them over a long weekend in Ireland and came back with a winning string, much to his rivals’ surprise. The team won 11 of their 12 games that summer. Frolic’s passion for polo was reflected in his deep involvement in the sport. He won the Intercollegiates in 1957, served on the Board of Governors of the USPA from 1968 to 1972, and initiated the Gerald Balding and Tar Baby tournaments at Brandywine.

As an accomplished sportsman, Frolic will also be remembered for his coaching skills and

his internationally recognised collection of antique coaches and carriages. He once drove more than 1,000 miles, from New York City to Vermont and down to Saratoga Springs, creating quite a stir when he took his coach through Harlem, paying no attention to the traffic lights.

His favourite team of four matched standard bay horses were known as much for their winning abilities as for their names: I’m, Slightly, Sexy and Drunk, which Frolic could be heard calling out in Windsor Great Park – as one of only two American members of The Coaching Club in England – or in his own intricate maze that he constructed at his Chadds Ford home, the Big Bend. Frolic’s famous humour shone at his annual driving competition, where one year he placed beautiful naked models on swings in the trees in an attempt to break his fellow competitors’ concentration.

Spanning more than six decades, Frolic’s career as an artist, encouraged by his close friend and mentor Andrew Wyeth, flourished.

His wide range of works include landscapes and portraits, many of which now hang in important private collections as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brandywine River Museum of Art and Windsor Castle.

His subjects included such well-known figures as Luciano Pavarotti, His Royal Highness Prince Philip and David Rockefeller – all of whom Frolic counted among his friends.

follow @hurlinghampolo

24 25 TALK Frolic obituary KB BD EOG.indd 25

In addition to founding the Brandywine River Museum – which now has a collection of more than 4,000 important American works – Frolic will be remembered as the driving force behind conservation efforts in Pennsylvania, which inspired land-conservation organisations around the world. Today, he is responsible for having protected more than 45,000 acres that would have otherwise fallen to the wave of devastating urban development that has swallowed up too many rural counties in the United States.

Frolic was taught by his father that the three pillars of a successful life were honesty, generosity and, above all, a sense of humour.

Frolic set out to live up to his name at a young age and never looked back. In the process, he brought a great deal of happiness not only to his friends and family, but also to countless others who never met him but will benefit from his legacy for many years to come. When asked by a journalist from the Philadelphia Inquirer if he considered himself a bon vivant, he responded, ‘Do you mean I’m a good liver? Yes, I love good living. Why have a bad time? It’s such a beautiful world and every day is my oyster. No one has had more fun out of life than I have.’ Rege Ludwig, who started his polo career with Frolic, commented, ‘I trained a polo pony when I worked for him. She pulled up [stopped] so easily, Frolic named her French Nighty.’ That was Frolic – and we are going to miss him.

25

03/06/2016 12:38

TALK

HORSE POWER Racing driver Freddie Hunt may be following in his famous father’s tracks, but he’ll always have a passion for polo, writes Lucy Watson

Any mention of Freddie Hunt will instinctively move towards talk of his father, James – the illustrious playboy racer and subject of the 2013 blockbuster film Rush. And naturally so: as the winner of the 1976 Formula One World Championship, he’s famed for his exhilarating speed and his antics both on and off the track – earning him the nickname ‘Hunt the Shunt’ – and Freddie is heading in the same direction, competing in Euro NASCAR and setting his sights on Le Mans. Though it seems Hunt Jr is carving his own path through the world of racing in pursuit of his father’s legacy, his background isn’t in the typical karts and cars of budding race-drivers, but in polo.

As James chose to retire from the track in 1979 – several years prior to Freddie’s birth

26

26 27 TALK Freddie Hunt KB BD EOG.indd 26

– and tragically died before Freddie was six years old, it was only natural the younger Hunt’s interests should follow his mother’s. In keeping with her passions, Sarah Lomax was key in shaping Freddie and his brother Tom’s early forays with ponies. And so keen was she that for a full year, Freddie was forbidden from using a saddle in order to improve his riding. ‘Horses were always my life,’ he admits. ‘Mum was from a horse-racing background, so naturally I was brought up around horses. In fact, one of my earliest memories is riding bareback with my brother, together on one pony, when one of us slid off and pulled the other with him into a big puddle. I must have been about three or four.’

By 14, Freddie’s love of horses had led him to polo, and then, naturally, to Argentina. ‘Though

I started riding at three years old, it was at 15, when I first went to Argentina, that I really learnt how to ride properly,’ he explains. ‘The only thing that can teach someone to ride well is the horse itself – five hours a day in the saddle for years, and then you’ll become a real horseman.’ From there he went professional, leaving school at 16 (he admits he wasn’t the most academically gifted of children) to pursue a career he loved.

He played low-goal for Cowdray Park, amongst other clubs, returning to Argentina each winter to school his young horses.

It wasn’t until 2006 – when ageing horses coincided with an impulsive lap at the Goodwood Festival of Speed – that racing began to seem like a viable option for Freddie, and a swift career change took place. This led him to drive

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:37

TALK

Opposite and below Freddie photographed in West Sussex; wearing a TAG Heuer special-edition timepiece inspired by his father, James Hunt

It’s not for the faint-hearted, but polo is one of the greatest sports around, in my opinion

As a tribute to his father, Freddie continues to wear red, blue and yellow (the colours on James’s helmet, which were those of his former school), and in hindsight admits his father may have had more of an influence on his early career choices than he previously realised.

‘I was never destined to sit in an office. From a young age I was climbing trees, doing crazy

things, in and out of hospital – that’s the way I am,’ he recalls. ‘I’d driven vehicles long before I’d passed my test – quad bikes and motorbikes, tearing round the farm. And it was always with my foot flat to the floor. We had motorbikes when we were kids and we’d do time trials racing laps round the garden, so I’d always loved to drive things fast, and – naturally – when I’m on the horse, ride fast. I think it is hereditary.’

Polo was Freddie’s first outlet for his love of speed, and though at 29 his career is now more track than field, he is never far from the sport.

‘It’s not for the faint-hearted, but polo is one of the greatest sports around, in my opinion,’ he says, explaining how he’s always drawn back for the odd chukka. ‘The only problem is that it’s so damn expensive to keep the horses!’

ELLIOT HOBSON; LORENZO AGIUS, COURTESY OF TAG HEUER

for Joe Tandy Racing in the British Formula Ford, and then Buchbinder Racing in the ADAC Formel Masters and ADAC Cruze Cup. After an injury in 2013, Freddie recently returned to the track, teaming up with Mike Newton’s Tiga racing to test-drive and develop a Le Mans LMP2 car. And, in a rather serendipitous move, he has also signed with M&N Racing to drive alongside Mathias Lauda – the son of James’s rival, Niki Lauda.

Freddie was always aware of his father’s legacy, but it was only once he entered the world of racing that he really started to understand how extensive that influence really was – and still is. ‘I knew he’d won the World Championship, but I didn’t actually realise how loved and how famous he was. After Rush, the awareness of the Hunt name has grown a lot. A hell of a lot.’

follow @hurlinghampolo

26 27 TALK Freddie Hunt KB BD EOG.indd 27

27

03/06/2016 12:37

LIFESTYLE LUXURY OFFERINGS FROM THE WORLD’S BEST BRANDS

x MARQUE OF DISTINCTION Emerging from the blueprint of the 1957 D-Type Le Mans racer, the Jaguar XKSS was so beloved

by Steve McQueen – one of the owners of the few made – that, eight years after selling it, he bought it back at more than double what he’d initially paid.

An edition of 25 was originally produced from the cars that brought Jaguar to victory in three consecutive Le Mans races, but, after just 16 were sold, a tragic fire destroyed the remainder. Those that survived are some of the most valuable in existence, but now the XKSS is back in production.

At the 2016 New York Auto Show, the marque announced it would reproduce the nine lost cars to the exact original specifications as part of the Jaguar Classic initiative, expected for 2017.

From US$1.6m (around £1.1m); jaguar.co.uk

y CHANGE OF ART After three years and an investment of US$610m (around £419m), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art reopened in May. Architectural firm Snøhetta was behind the project, which added 100,000sq ft of new gallery space, an education centre, a theatre, a sculpture garden and a façade inspired by the city’s waterside location and its fog.

The relaunch coincided with the first exhibition of works from the Fisher Collection, considered one of the greatest private assemblages of late 20th-century art. Calder to Warhol comprises 160 pieces gathered over 40 years. sfmoma.org

x CLEAN LIVING Knoll has long been a familiar name in furniture. Founded over 75 years ago, yet still at the forefront when it comes to innovation, its simple, ergonomic designs fit seamlessly into everyday life. More than 40 of them, including its classic Wassily and Barcelona chairs, are featured in the permanent collection of both New York’s Modern Art and Cooper Hewitt museums.

The company’s latest offerings, unveiled at Salone del Mobile in Milan, include a new sofa and storage series by Piero Lissoni (pictured), from US$4,530 (around £3,108), and updates to the existing Bertoia range in luxe cow hide and bronze, from US$1,120 (around £768); knoll.com

28

28 29 LIFESTYLE KB BD EOG.indd 28

© HENRIK KAM, COURTESY OF SFMOMA

y CLEAR DIFFERENCE A new range of kayaks and inflatables has been designed to make taking to the waves even more exhilarating – Clear Blue Hawaii’s boats either have clear bases or are constructed in entirely transparent military-grade urethane, offering superb sub-aqua viewing.

Its single-person Napali kayak is one of the lightest in the world, at just 12kg, and its 4m-long Kevlar frame can be folded down to fit into a typical hiking backpack, ready to be reassembled in just 30 minutes. And it’s gaining recognition beyond the world of ocean sports, too: both the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City have exhibited it as an example of outstanding contemporary design. From US$6,350 (around £4,355); clearbluehawaii.com

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:40

LIFESTYLE

y FUTURE VISION It was only a matter of time before virtual-reality products became available on a mass scale, and who better to bring them to market than the Midas-like Mark Zuckerberg?

The Facebook founder claimed that his acquisition of the company Oculus VR, back in 2014, was born out of a desire to ‘make the world a more open and connected place’; evidently, many people share his enthusiasm: since its international launch earlier this year, pre-orders for its lightweight, ultra-modern headset have exceeded expectation.

The Oculus Rift allows the wearer to be transported into games and films and marks the beginning of a new era for virtual immersion, with the likes of PlayStation and Sony already looking to follow suit with the launch of their own versions. US$599 (around £415); oculus.com

{ SIGNATURE STYLE Amalgamating Asian simplicity with classic Western style, the Julia B range of monogramadorned cotton and linen products was inspired by its founder Julia Berger’s extensive travels and her dual heritage: she was raised in both Tokyo and San Francisco by a Japanese mother and an American father. And hers is a truly international company in other ways, too – believing that handcrafted merchandise still has a place in a world of impersonal consumerism, she sources material from multigenerational businesses in Italy and Eastern Europe, and draws on the expertise of highly skilled embroiderers in Vietnam and Madagascar.

The charm of Berger’s wares is their timeless nature and muted colours, making them suitable for both modern and traditional interiors. A recent home-furnishings and accessories collaboration with Bunny Williams Home marks the arrival of three new intricately hand-embroidered and/or appliquéd bedding designs – Elizabeth, Annabelle and Cleopatra – in 100-per-cent linen and 425-thread-count cotton percale. From US$188 (around £130); juliab.com

y PERSONAL TIME For the 85th birthday of its Reverso watch, Jaeger-LeCoultre has invited polo ambassador Clare Milford Haven – with whom it has been building close ties since 2004 – to design a personalised model. She has chosen the Reverso Classic Duetto Medium in pink gold, which, above and beyond its Art Deco inspiration, features a second face on the back in the shape of a dial, providing space for personalisation. Clare wished to have the carrier of the watch engraved with her family crest, symbolised by a crown, the initials of her children, and two polo mallets. Finally, the night-blue calfskin strap is reminiscent of polo players’ boots. jaeger-lecoultre.com

{ ISLAND PARADISE If there were ever a reason to visit Miami, the new Miami Beach Edition is it. Each establishment in Edition Hotels’ portfolio is beautifully designed and indisputably luxurious, and this latest addition, overlooking 70,000sq ft of prime beachfront, is no exception.

The focus on quality is apparent in every aspect, from its 28 conceptually unique bungalows and 294 rooms to its restaurant, headed up by award-winning chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The menu at the bullring-shaped Matador Room gives a modern twist to Spanish, Caribbean and South American cuisines. Its gardens – inspired by Havana’s legendary 1950s Club Tropicana – are verdant with flowering vines and lush greenery. As the sun sets, guests can decamp to The Sandbox, a secluded snug with daybeds and hammocks from which to watch a film on the outdoor screen. Rooms from US$489 (around £335); editionhotels.com/miami-beach

follow @hurlinghampolo

28 29 LIFESTYLE KB BD EOG.indd 29

29

03/06/2016 12:40

PROFILE

JOE MEYER Polo player and entrepreneur Joe Meyer was an obvious choice for chairman of the United States Polo Association, and he’s passionate about the opportunity to grow the sport ILLUSTRATION PHIL DISLEY

My polo career started about 15 years ago.

As a former Armor Cavalry Officer in the US Army, I studied General George S Patton.

I was always intrigued by his passion for horsemanship and polo and made a decision that I wanted to learn to play. I was number seven of nine children, and my siblings and I learned independence at an early age and that if we wanted something, we had to set our minds to it and then get to work. You just took action. My parents provided the tools and the opportunity, but it was up to each of us to make it happen.

After I retired from active duty as a captain, I spent the next 10 years focused on my civilian career. Following a corporate billet with FritoLay, a Pepsi Company, and AT&T, I knew my entrepreneurial desires were calling. I like to work hard, take chances, but also to stay committed for the duration or long haul.

One of my passions as a child was technology.

As the son of an engineer, building things and watching them work was a great joy. I loved radios and would always have one of the best in my tank. Understanding how the networks functioned and then getting to terms with the technology gave me a significant advantage

30

30 31 PROFILE Joe Meyer MF BD EOG.indd 30

when I looked at new opportunities. As a founder of the first pre-paid debit card company, Skylight Financial, we leveraged a lot of existing technologies and made them work in a way no one else had done before. Skylight was quite successful and we eventually sold it. I continue to start and build FinTech companies.

My wife of 25 years, Susan, is a keen supporter of all things equine and polo. In fact, she has a great eye for horses, as well as their care. On a trip to the West Coast, we were the guests of FIP founder Ambassador Glen Holden and his wife Gloria. As Glen was sharing his stories of FIP, Susan mentioned that she loved the travel and international aspect of polo. Glen graciously invited us to Argentina for the FIP Ambassadors Cup and I’ve been involved with FIP ever since.

Both of our children are involved in the horse world as well. My daughter Isabella was a competitive hunter jumper and my son J Paul an accomplished lacrosse and squash player who eventually picked up polo. He is currently in college, where he’s joined the Harvard Polo Club, and he’s played polo around the world – in China, France, England and Argentina. The fact that he plays so well

and is passionate about the sport is one of my proudest personal accomplishments.

As the twentieth chairman of the United States Polo Association (USPA), I am excited, honoured and humbled by the tremendous opportunity to grow the sport and to move us forward as an organisation, while remaining loyal to the USPA’s past 125 years.

My job is to continue to lead our association with the help of the board and executive committee via our vision and core values.

We make decisions and take action so that we can build a vibrant organisation and create a great polo experience for all involved, including our horses. As we implement those plans, we’ll make changes to continue to improve the game.

I also work with the governors and committee chairs from the bottom up, to help our clubs and membership flourish. Our volunteer committees work hard to formulate plans to grow and enhance polo. Once they’re developed and approved by the board, the committees work with our staff to execute the plans.

Over the next few years, my focus will be to continue to concentrate on polo projects that can rapidly grow the sport while supporting our various committees that reach out and

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

PROFILE

I’m excited when I can support young players and get them on teams that help them improve

support our clubs. One of these initiatives is marketing polo, and a key component of this is obtaining coverage of the sport in the media.

Getting folks to hear about and see polo will be a huge benefit and complement the game’s growth. We all know that if someone tries polo and has a good experience, they will continue.

We have also focused heavily on our polo development initiatives for our clubs, members and Team USPA. Our youth programmes have had a significant impact on our overall growth of polo in the US. We really focus on the clubs.

We know that a healthy club with a good manager who can organise polo, as well as having lesson and youth programmes, will create a healthy polo environment. Having

support from the USPA is critical for these clubs. Our Polo Development Initiative fund, which provides money directly to the clubs, has now grown to $425,000.

In Aiken, South Carolina, and now in Florida, I’m excited when I can support young players and get them on teams that help them improve. I am very proud of Team USPA – which now has 61 members – and seeing what has become of the original idea that I worked on with Tom Biddle. Charles Smith and his team have done a phenomenal job with the programme. The fact that our young men performed so well at the World Cup in Chile last year – finishing in second place, the highest the US has seen since its win in 1989 – is

follow @hurlinghampolo

30 31 PROFILE Joe Meyer MF BD EOG.indd 31

a testament to the programme. Indeed, watching so many of these young men and women play on high-goal teams is a real treat for me. Winning the Copper Cup, our national 12-goal championship, in 2013 with an all-American team of Will Tankard, Nick Snow and John Gobin was amazing.

The USPA finished the year with 5,267 members, 290 active clubs, and a record 111 Interscholastic and Intercollegiate programmes. I’m proud of leading the strategic plans that have given us road maps to get to where we are today. We’ll hit bumps along the way, but the USPA board and staff are focused on success. We work well together and I’m proud to support them.

31

03/06/2016 12:38

Piebald mustangs from the McCulloch Peaks population near Cody, Wyoming

32 37 FEATURE Noble Companion EOG BD GW.indd 32

03/06/2016 12:37

A STABLE COMPANION Wendy Williams explores the extraordinary bond between humans and horses, and discovers a partnership that spans the course of evolution

32 37 FEATURE Noble Companion EOG BD GW.indd 33

03/06/2016 12:37

I remember clearly the last match I played.

It was decades ago, but the feel of it is still in my body, in my arms and my torso and in my legs. The rhythm of my mare’s galloping returns to me as though it were yesterday.

Muscular memory is a joyous experience.

Following the line of the ball, she and I were halfway down the field. We had a clear shot into an undefended goal. Then, out of the blue, a horse and rider from the opposing team tore in front of us, 10 yards ahead at a 90-degree angle.

Still, my mare and I stayed in sync. She continued steady on while I shifted in the saddle to make the shot. Each of us knew exactly what the other was going to do.

Our timing was perfect. We made the ball run straight and true, right under the belly of the horse crossing the line and straight on – into the goal.

I have to say, in all modesty, it was a great shot. I can say this in modesty because it may

34

32 37 FEATURE Noble Companion EOG BD GW.indd 34

well have been the only great shot I ever made during my five years of playing polo.

That shot was one of life’s little miracles.

Another was the partnership between me and my horse. She was an immensely handy little thing, a perfect partner who read every shift of body weight I made, every movement of the other horses and riders. Like other good polo ponies, she often anticipated the play before I did, read the tiniest clues from my legs, and was always right there, taking the challenge on by the time I had made a conscious decision. Nevertheless, her common sense was simply profound.

I was thinking of her when I decided to write a scientific book about the partnership between horses and humans. The result – The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion – is an attempt to say thank you to her, and to the many horses I’ve owned or ridden in my life, who have shown me places in the world I wouldn’t otherwise have seen

and who have left me with memories, at the age of 65, that I otherwise wouldn’t have.

I am eternally grateful to them.

In the days when I played polo, before I became serious about my career as an author, I took for granted that horses are willing to partner up with us. Later, I began to wonder: what is the nature of the partnership between horse and human and why do they choose to cooperate with us, and we with them?

Why are we drawn to them? It’s not only that we can ride them – ie, get something from them – because the evidence points to a deeper allure: horses are the most commonly depicted animals in Ice Age art – art that was created roughly 35,000 to 10,000 years ago, long before evidence shows horses were either domesticated or ridden.

There are many different ways to answer the questions I had, but since I’m a science journalist, I decided to ask scientists who work in various horse-related fields. I interviewed

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:37

Oposite Mustangs in Wyoming’s Pryor Mountains This page, from top It was here where the earliest-known horses and true primates lived; a fossilised skeleton of a tiny dawn horse

LISA MARKS BLM WYOMING; ALAMY/GREG AUGER

Throughout all these tectonic shifts and climatic changes, horses survived by adapting

neuroscientists, palaeontologists, cognitive researchers, archaeologists, art historians, experts in plate tectonics, researchers who knew a lot about the evolution of grass... the list goes on. I then read books by Nobel Laureates, novelists, philosophers, biologists, geologists and more.

What I found was that our attraction is strongly rooted in our mutually shared evolutionary journeys. The story is remarkable in that the relationship is deeper than anything I’d expected. For example, apparently we started life together. The earliest-known horses and the earliest-known true primates turn up together at Polecat Bench in the western American state of Wyoming. Same place. Same time. Same ecosystem.

Today, Polecat Bench is a desiccated, almost dismal habitat where the wind blows so hard that local folk say you can just lie back in its supportive arms and take a nap.

But it wasn’t always so. Fifty-six million years ago, when the dawn horses and the earliest-known true primates occupied the area, Wyoming was wet, wild and warm. It was lush. It had shrubs, trees and wetlands.

Grass was next to non-existent. In fact, grasslands as such did not yet exist anywhere on our planet. But neither the horses nor the primates minded its absence. They had plenty to eat in the form of leaves and fruit.

The little dawn horses had four toes on their front feet and three on their hind, and teeth that were good at sheering tender buds from branches. They had no grinding teeth, so, had there been any grass, they wouldn’t have been able to eat it anyway.

If you looked at a fossil of a dawn horse, unless you had an educated eye, you might not recognise the animal we treasure today.

The peculiar backbone of the modern horse did not yet exist, so these dog-sized horses would not have been able to gallop. Scientists believe this animal could only ‘scamper’, but that gait was enough to allow it to evade most of the predators then extant on the planet.

In fact, some scientists suggest that the little horses’ scamper was then the fastest gait going.

Nothing stays the same on our planet, and the centre of the North American continent – where horse evolution primarily occurred – underwent profound changes over the following tens of millions of years.

Mountains rose. Mountains eroded. The continent became cooler, and then heated up

follow @hurlinghampolo

32 37 FEATURE Noble Companion EOG BD GW.indd 35

again. During some periods, North America was physically connected to Asia, which allowed various species of horse to migrate into Asia, Europe and even Africa.

Throughout all these tectonic shifts and climatic changes, horses survived by adapting.

When the world changed, after becoming substantially colder, the horses lost toes.

Eventually, with only one toe – the modern hoof – the horses were able to navigate the open grasslands that finally covered the planet during the ice ages, when the trees receded.

We primates chose a different survival technique. Rather than making such massive physical changes, we moved south. Primates

35

03/06/2016 12:37

disappeared entirely from North America when conditions became colder and instead proliferated in the nurturing warmth of Africa.

For quite a while, horses and primates went their separate ways. But from time to time, different species of horse found their way into eastern and southern Africa. The three species of modern zebra are one result, but among the most successful of the pre-modern horse species that made it to Africa was a group called Hipparion. These horses, who lived only a few million years ago, are easily recognised as animals closely related to our Equus. They were small, weighing perhaps from 100 to 250lbs. They still had three very functional toes at the bottom of each leg. But they had a distinctively horse-like head, and teeth that allowed them to live primarily on grass.

Indeed, my favourite example of the horse-human partnership dates back to the existence of these hipparion horses. A few

36

32 37 FEATURE Noble Companion EOG BD GW.indd 36

decades ago, scientists researching human evolution were working in an area of southeast Africa called Laetoli. They found footprints of a pre-human called Australopithecus afarensis.

Dating from about 3.6 million years ago, these footprints showed a trail left in volcanic ash by three individuals – possibly two adults and one youngster. The tracks showed, remarkably, an arch in the foot, just as we modern humans have.

The Laetoli tracks were an international sensation. Their discovery was written about in the popular press and discussed on television news broadcasts worldwide.

But what wasn’t widely discussed was the presence of two sets of horse tracks – a Hipparion mare and foal – that crossed the tracks left by the pre-humans. In those tracks you can see the foal gambolling back and forth in front of the mare, just as we often see today, and you can see the mare

slip in the ash at one point and use her side-toes to brace herself and keep from falling.

There we were together, on the same African plain at about the same time, sharing a habitat.

Truly remarkable.

I also love thinking about the evidence of our relationship with horses that comes down to us from the art of Ice Age Europe and Asia, from about 35,000 years ago to around 12,000 years ago. By this time, horses were pretty much what they are today: single-toed beings with a propensity for running and living together in small bands.

And we were pretty much what we are today too: Homo sapiens. We used stone tools. We ate horsemeat. We lived underneath rock overhangs in what would become the Middle East, Spain, France, Britain, Germany and so on.

And everywhere we lived, we made art.

We painted on cave walls, carved talismans from mammoth ivory, made spear-throwers

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

Opposite A depiction of the wild horses of two million years ago This page, left and bottom Rock paintings on the walls of Chauvet Cave in southern France and Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne respectively Below The author’s critically acclaimed book

Humans revered horses long before we kept or rode them in any organised fashion

ALAMY

out of reindeer antler. In this art, many, many animals were depicted, but, by some scientific accounts, horses were most commonly shown.

I’ve seen horse heads carved on to the shoulder bones of horses, horse heads carved into reindeer antlers, ivory jewellery that depicts horses and scene after scene after scene of horses painted on cave walls.

It’s clear from these portrayals that humans revered horses long before we kept them as livestock or rode them in any organised fashion.

It’s also clear we spent long hours just watching their behaviour. These Ice Age artists depicted much of the subtlety of what we’d recognise as modern equine behaviour – you might as well be looking at your own horses, pastured in a group out in a large field.

In southern France’s famous Chauvet Cave, for example, we can see a band of four horses standing together, eating and watching the actions of the other animals around them, just as they would in the modern world.

In Lascaux Cave, meanwhile, we can see a line of jogging ponies travelling along the wall. Further south, in the Pyrenees, carvings made from reindeer antler show a horse with laid-back ears and bared teeth.

Near a cave mouth in Germany, excavators have found a tiny yet majestic carving of a horse with an arched neck – a stallion, perhaps, challenging a rival? – that was apparently meant to be worn as a pendant. At around 35,000 years of age, it is not only the oldest known piece of equine art, but among the oldest-known artistic depictions of anything.

Polished and graceful and handled by many humans, it is the most elegant statement I can imagine regarding the continuing evolution of the 56-million-year-old partnership between horses and humans.

American science journalist Wendy Williams is the author of The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion, published in October 2015

by Scientific American and Farrar Straus Giroux and named one of the year’s 10 best non-fiction books by The Wall Street Journal

follow @hurlinghampolo

32 37 FEATURE Noble Companion EOG BD GW.indd 37

37

03/06/2016 12:38

FREE REIGN To mark the Queen’s 90th birthday, Lord Patrick Beresford looks back on the perennial presence of horses in the course of Her Majesty’s life, from royal races to an attempted assassination

38 43 FEATURE Queens Birthday MF EOG BD.indd 38

03/06/2016 12:39

IMAGESOFPOLO.COM; PAUL POPPER/POPPERFOTO/GETTY IMAGES

Opposite The Queen at the Al Habtoor Royal Windsor Cup in 2014 Below Her Majesty in 1960, galloping along the racecourse at Ascot

Windsor Great Park, June 1955: pony lines in the recently formed polo club. Top society photographer Albert Swaebe, camera at the ready, approaches a couple talking together.

‘I know you,’ he remarks to the player, ‘but what is the name of your young lady?’

The 21-year-old player is struck dumb and it is left to the ‘young lady’ to reply. Turning with an enchanting smile, she says quite simply: ‘The Queen’.

This vignette was described by Albert Swaebe in his memoir Photographer Royal as his ‘most embarrassing moment’. And I can vouch for its accuracy, as the player was me.

Her Majesty’s involvement with polo began in Malta, soon after her marriage

Her Majesty’s involvement with polo began in Malta soon after her marriage to Prince Philip. There, the couple was living in a naval married quarter while Prince Philip served with the Mediterranean Fleet. Under the

follow @hurlinghampolo

38 43 FEATURE Queens Birthday MF EOG BD.indd 39

tutelage of his uncle, Admiral Lord Mountbatten – himself a pre-war five-goaler and author of the definitive An Introduction to Polo – the prince readily took up the game and was enthusiastically watched by his new wife.

Around the same time, after an eight-year gap owing to World War II, polo had been revived in England – by three remarkable men: John Cowdray in Midhurst, Archie David at Henley and Billy Walsh at Ham. When the royal couple returned to England in 1952, on the untimely death of King George VI, it was the former who encouraged Prince Philip to continue in polo by playing at Cowdray.

39

03/06/2016 12:39

In 1955, the prince conceived the idea of creating polo fields on Smith’s Lawn at Windsor Great Park and of inviting Archie David to move his 30 ponies from Henley to the Royal Mews at Windsor. What is now the Guards Polo Club was born and, as it gradually expanded, the top yard in the mews continued to stable Archie’s ponies, with his girl grooms in the dormitories above, the Queen’s horses and carriage horses in the middle yard, the 24 club ponies – most of them donated by Archie – in the bottom yard, and, in the adjacent lower yard (six boxes), Prince Philip’s own small string.

Meanwhile, the prince formed a mediumgoal team named Windsor Park, whose colours – dark green with red piping – were based

40

38 43 FEATURE Queens Birthday MF EOG BD.indd 40

on the cassocks worn by the choristers of the chapel in Royal Lodge. Its three other players were entirely mounted by Archie, as, of course, was Archie’s own team, Friar Park, named after the Davids’ Victorian home near Henley (which, incidentally, was later bought by the Beatle George Harrison).

Like other polo wives, the Queen attended virtually every weekend her husband played

In those early days, prior to the re-emergence of the IRA, the need for security was far less stringent than it now is, meaning that the Queen could safely walk about at half-time, treading in like everyone else, shadowed distantly by a single inconspicuous detective.

Like other polo wives, she attended virtually every weekend that her husband was playing.

Later, she also came to watch her son Prince Charles, as well as her adventurous young cousin Prince William of Gloucester, who was so tragically killed while piloting his own aeroplane in August 1972, less than a week after winning the Godley Memorial Tournament on Smith’s Lawn.

Prince Philip made his first foray into high goal in 1957, and over the next 13 years

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

TIM GRAHAM/GETTY IMAGES; CHAS WHITE

Opposite Trooping the Colour in 1972 Below The Queen presents the Cowdray Gold Cup to (from left) the Marquis of Waterford, Lord Patrick Beresford, Paul Withers and Prince Philip in 1969

won every tournament that existed at that level, with the single exception of the Queen’s Cup – probably the one he would have valued most.

The nearest he came was in 1964, when, with his teammate, the famous Argentine Juan Carlos Harriott, the Windsor Park team was frustratingly run out of it by a half-goal in the final. Afterwards, when both teams were invited into the Royal Box, Prince Philip jokingly enquired of Harriott: ‘Juan Carlos, what does that word carajo, which I heard you muttering several times during the match, actually mean in English?’ Juan Carlos had to think pretty quickly, but to his eternal

credit – and to the Queen’s intense amusement – almost without hesitation, he replied: ‘Oh, it means “well played, sir”’.

By way of compensation, the Queen has had the satisfaction of presenting her Cup to Prince Charles and Les Diables Bleus in 1986 and, prior to that, the Cowdray Gold Cup to Prince Philip on no fewer than three occasions, the last of which, in 1969, he won in an all-British foursome – the only time this has ever been achieved.

Along the way, Her Majesty has bred many great polo ponies, often tracing back to playing mares given to Prince Philip in Argentina.

follow @hurlinghampolo

38 43 FEATURE Queens Birthday MF EOG BD.indd 41

Until 1981, Prince Charles’s favourite pony had been the coloured Pecas, which the London Dockers had given him as a 21st birthday present. But then along came Happiness, who was a granddaughter of the lovely chestnut Inez, outstanding in the Palermo Open and subsequently given to Prince Philip by her owner/breeder Juan Nelson. Also worthy of mention from the same bloodline was the well-named High Tea,

by Teekay out of Bali Hai, considered by many to have been extremely unlucky not to have won the Best Playing Pony award in the Coronation Cup of 1998.

41

03/06/2016 12:39

In all breeding, there is an element of luck.

Good fortune came the Queen’s way when Doublet, a handsome gelding by Doubtless II, out of another Argentine mare called Swaté, grew too big for polo and was given to Princess Anne to event. Trained by Alison Oliver, they went on to win the European Championships at Burghley in September that same year.

Bad luck, in retrospect, came in 1982 with the decision to sell, albeit for an enormous sum, one of her top broodmares, Height of Fashion, to Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum.

A few years later, in 1989, one of the mare’s progeny, the great Nashwan, became the first Middle Eastern-owned winner of the Derby – the only classic to have eluded Her Majesty.

Racing has, of course, been an abiding passion in her life. She first embarked on ownership in 1949 – jointly with her mother – of the Irish-bred steeplechaser Monaveen, selected for them by the then-leading amateur rider Anthony Mildmay. Monaveen did well for the partnership, winning on five occasions, including (appropriately) the newly instituted Queen Elizabeth Chase at Hurst Park. On the death of her father, she inherited the Royal Studs, horses and colours, and in 1953 – the

42

38 43 FEATURE Queens Birthday MF EOG BD.indd 42

year of her coronation – came tantalisingly close to winning the Derby with Aureole, who chased home the winner Pinza, ridden by champion jockey Sir Gordon Richards.

Over the ensuing years, the Queen has bred and owned the winner of every other classic, but perhaps the loudest cheer of all was the one that greeted her filly Estimate when she returned to the paddock after triumphing in the 2013 Ascot Gold Cup. Estimate was the result of a shrewd exchange of mares with the Aga Khan, designed to bring fresh blood into both their breeding operations. The colts would be kept by their respective owner, the fillies by their borrower. The first filly was Estimate.

The racecourse at Ascot was founded in the 18th century by Queen Anne and must surely be the present Queen’s favourite – so far she has had no fewer than 71 winners there, including 22 at the Royal meetings.

But it is not only with racehorses, polo ponies and eventers that the Queen has proved to be such a successful breeder. When presented with a Haflinger by the President of Austria, she embarked on breeding them, and last year, for instance, won the In-hand Haflinger class honours at the Royal Windsor Horse Show.

Clockwise from top left The Queen and Prince Philip with Lord and Lady Cowdray; Cartier Queen’s Cup finals 2015; Prince Charles gives his mother a kiss as she presents the prizes at Guards Polo Club in 1985; riding her pony in Windsor Great Park in the 1930s

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

ANN RONAN PICTURES/PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES; COWDRAY ARCHIVE; IMAGESOFPOLO.COM; ALAMY

She retains an encyclopaedic memory of sires and dams, as well as being gifted with that rare blessing – ‘an eye for a horse’

The same applies to other breeds and types: Mountain and Moorland, Highland, Fell, show hunters, piebalds, Retraining of Racehorses classes with her horse Barbers Shop (bred by the Queen Mother) and, of course, the royal carriage horses and the horses that pulled Prince Philip when he took up driving. In all, she retains an encyclopaedic memory of their sires and dams, as well as being unarguably gifted with that rare blessing – ‘an eye for a horse’.

Overall, she likes her young stock to be ‘started’ (as it is called, rather than ‘broken in’) by the extraordinary Californian horsewhisperer Monty Roberts. His opinion of her is just as high as hers is of him.

The Queen has ridden since childhood.

Her preference is not for side-saddle – even today she goes out astride in Windsor Great Park with her stud groom Terry Pendry.

Yet, who can forget her elegance riding side-saddle for nearly 40 years at Trooping the

follow @hurlinghampolo

38 43 FEATURE Queens Birthday MF EOG BD.indd 43

Colour or her brilliant horsemanship when, in 1981, her charger was startled by a gunman who fired at them at close range on the approach to Horse Guards Parade. A Scots Guard street-liner, having returned to his battalion from the elite Guards Parachute Company, quickly disarmed the gunman and pinned him to the ground. As it turned out, the weapon was only a starting pistol, but no one was to know that, least of all the Queen, who rode on appearing totally unperturbed.

43

03/06/2016 12:39

FROM THE GROUND UP: REVIVING POLO AT PRINCETON After a decades-long absence, polo has returned to Princeton University.

The sport’s history at the Ivy League school is illustrious, but only time will tell if its future can be the same, writes Nikolas T Weissmueller

44

44 47 FEATURE Princeton history KB BD EOG.indd 44

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

Opposite The 2016 Princeton polo team This page The Princeton men’s team playing arena polo against Harvard

national polo circuit. Their owners were too old, too ill, or both, to continue operations. And the few remaining New Jersey clubs are ageing rapidly. Hesham El-Gharby, club manager at Tinicum Polo Club, addressed me jokingly at our last board meeting: ‘With you on the pitch, we’re averaging less than 60 years old.’ The sport needs to attract and retain the younger generations, and it’s the nation’s high schools and universities that must lead the charge.

When I arrived in Princeton in 2014, I had no idea how to start or manage a polo club.

In the depths of the university’s archives, I stumbled upon time-worn handwritten notes composed by the founders of Princeton’s polo club. It was fascinating to unearth, contextualise and link documents to reveal a detailed picture

of how my current goal of building a polo club at Princeton had been accomplished 100 years ago. As the first-ever collegiate champion, Princeton was once a driving force in the fabric of US polo. So what led to its 20th-century success and ultimate demise?

The original Princeton University Polo Club founders were students of the game since childhood. Brothers Walter Bourchier Devereux Jr and William Gregory Devereux were coached by Hervey A Lyle, an Irishman who learnt polo while on tour of duty in Her Majesty’s Army in India in the 1860s. In 1902, as college sophomores, ‘Busher’ and ‘Bill’, together with a few classmates, organised a series of polo matches, the first documented games at Princeton. The sport’s popularity

NIKOLAS WEISSMUELLER

Polo is back at Princeton University after a 50-year hiatus, but a return to the programme’s heyday remains a distant prospect. In order to recreate a top-notch collegiate club, the newly revived programme must build on lessons learnt – from the driving factors behind the club’s beginnings and its meteoric rise on campus to the causes of its eventual extinction.

While many of these challenges and obstacles have already been overcome, work must still be done in order to realise the club’s vision of a self-sustaining, competitive and socially purposeful polo programme.

Polo in New Jersey is dying. Over the past 10 years, multiple clubs have closed their doors, including the revered Hillsborough and Colts Neck clubs. Both were regular venues for the

follow @hurlinghampolo

44 47 FEATURE Princeton history KB BD EOG.indd 45

45

03/06/2016 12:38

This page, from left Princeton’s National Indoor Polo Champions in 1934; the 1920 university polo team celebrate as the first-ever National Intercollegiate Champions Opposite Post-World War II Princeton polo revivalists bring the sport back to campus

spread and, by the following spring, Princeton was the first college in the US to officially adopt polo as a collegiate sport. In May 1904, at Van Cortlandt Park in New York, Princeton and Yale clashed in America’s first intercollegiate polo match. Led by captain Bill Devereux, Princeton won seven goals to two. But sadly, the event was marred by tragedy: Yale player Henry Babcock Jr was accidentally struck in the head by Devereux’s mallet. At the time, Babcock brushed aside the possibility of an injury, but the next day, he fell unconscious and died. The Princeton team disbanded. ‘The players [felt] too keenly the death of Babcock to continue the game,’ The New York Times reported. Upon graduation, the players and their ponies disappeared from Princeton’s campus.

The sport returned in 1919 with a vastly different organisational structure. At the end of World War I, the US Army began expanding its Reserve Officers’ Training Corps on college campuses, and polo was one of its best recruiting tools. The sport’s meteoric rise at Princeton was further catalysed by the formation of the Princeton Polo Association (PPA), a universityindependent entity directed by alumnus Walter B Devereux Jr and financially supported by about 160 members. The PPA was dedicated to expanding facilities and enabling undergraduate

46

44 47 FEATURE Princeton history KB BD EOG.indd 46

participation. Soon, the team was practising on three outdoor fields, with two on lease from the university, and eventually, in the nation’s second-largest indoor riding hall.

Bolstered by its pivotal partnerships, Princeton polo thrived, and by 1944, the team had won six national championships. With the rise of machines, however, the military relevance of the game faded. What use was a horse against Hitler’s tank-driven blitzkrieg?

The ROTC Princeton Field Artillery removed horses from its exercises and switched to cars and other machinery. Responding to an acute national housing shortage, the university commissioned barracks for returning veterans to be built on W B Devereux Jr Memorial field.

The golden age of polo at Princeton was over.

In 1947, Princeton student Ed Iglehart attempted to revive the sport, putting together

To create a top-notch club, the revived programme must build on lessons learnt

a team despite the drastic lack of financial support and access to facilities. The club’s petition to use the old riding hall, now used for indoor track, was denied by the university.

The team defaulted to the next best option: Newark’s Essex Troop Armory, a two-hour drive from campus. Although the team averaged eight scrimmages a year, associated logistical challenges decimated membership.

In 1950, the records of this effort end. The team spearheaded by Thruston Pettus ’63, 10 years later, shared a similar fate.

Princeton polo’s 20th-century incarnations reveal a number of organisational insights.

Polo programmes managed by students alone are likely ephemeral, and will disappear shortly after the enterprising students graduate.

Expedited growth can be realised by partnering with external organisations with a shared purpose. However, a polo programme must partner carefully. Interdependence ought to be separable, in case one of the partners goes under. Princeton’s polo club thrived alongside the military’s ROTC programme and the Princeton Polo Association. However, the increasing irrelevance of the cavalry, along with the dwindling resources of the PPA down to a single member during World War II, crippled the operation. In addition, conveniently

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

equity. On the other hand, most East Coast programmes own and maintain horses and facilities, self-sufficiency made possible by university- and alumni-financed support.

The three-way collaboration between Princeton’s high schools, the university club and the community’s International Polo Club (PIPC) supports mutual and sustained growth.

In negotiating a partnership with local high schools, the club expands its access to new resources and talent. It fosters ‘town-andgown’ integration, and accesses revenue through shares of ticket sales, by playing opener matches at PIPC’s charitable events.

Carving out a space for polo again at Princeton entailed a number of challenges.

The application for club sport status was an uphill battle that required other club sports to cut their own budgets to accommodate a new entry. While Princeton’s proud polo history was a factor, the main selling point that tipped the scales was the club’s fiscal operation, financed solely by semester fees. At present, the most pressing obstacle yet to be tackled is the lack of an alumni support structure. The club is actively pursuing outreach via its own website, social media, and official university and USPA channels to identify, inspire and recruit Princeton alumni benefactors.

The lean start-up model is not without drawbacks. The patron-like arrangement removes student involvement in mucking out stalls and tacking horses – essential skills for a well-rounded polo education. Those new to equestrian sports are at risk of displaying an embarrassing lack of self-sufficiency at collegiate matches. Training is also limited by its rigid per-practice cost – three or more practices a week prove too expensive for most members. Nevertheless, some well-established Ivy League varsity polo programmes average two practices per week, yet compete successfully on the national and international stage.

The rejuvenation of polo in the US is most readily achieved by launching programmes at schools and universities. Starting and operating a club can be daunting if you plan to own and maintain facilities from the get-go. Unlike earlier club iterations, Princeton’s current model outsources the risks that make the sport a considerable time and financial commitment.

Any student can launch a successful polo programme. Officials at your national governing body are eager to help. If you’re thinking of starting a polo club, do not hesitate – take the plunge. As you grow your club, remember that giving back to your community can be a fruitful catalyst for sustainable growth.

SEELEY G MUDD MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

accessible facilities are essential for sustaining student participation for a prolonged period.

Princeton’s 21st-century polo programme has implemented these lessons for longevity amid its rapid growth. Launched in January 2014 with zero money down, the programme enabled students to start playing immediately.

In April, polo became an official Princeton University club sport. In July, the club became a member of the United States Polo Association.

In September, La Martina became the official supplier. Within one year, the men’s team challenged and defeated Yale’s varsity squad.

In the summer of 2015, the club competed at the International University Polo Challenge in Rome, Italy. Princeton played its first-ever match against Oxford University this past May. The operation is lean. Student membership dues alone cover rental of ponies and facilities from Hesham El-Gharby, who serves as the team’s head coach. This provides members with access to an indoor and outdoor arena and a regulation-size outdoor grass field. All facilities are located within 30 miles of the campus. Since horses are owned and cared for by the coach, the club’s longevity doesn’t depend on individual students, nor does it require an endowment or high membership dues to defray costs that would come with owning and maintaining

follow @hurlinghampolo

44 47 FEATURE Princeton history KB BD EOG.indd 47

47

03/06/2016 12:39

TOURNAMENTS P O L O S C H O O L crédit photo : jérôme houyvet / antoine delaporte

10/12 GOALS

11 - 26 JUNE TROPHY BOURON

08/10 GOALS

2 - 10 JULY TROPHY COQUETIER D’OR

0/4 GOALS

2 - 3 JULY SCANDINAVIAN CUP 9 - 10 JULY HORSEWARE CUP

4/6 GOALS

16 - 24 JULY INTERNATIONAL CUP

12/16 GOAL

12 - 18 SEPTEMBER WOMEN FRENCH OPEN

14/16 GOAL

3 - 18 SEPTEMBER FRENCH OPEN

6/8 GOALS

24 SEPTEMBER - 2 OCTOBER FRENCH CHAMPIONSHIP ET 40 TOURNOIS DE TOUS NIVEAUX AND 40 ADDITIONAL TOURNAMENTS

www.poloclubchantilly.com bp@poloclubchantilly.com - +33 3 44 64 47 67

ACTION

DAVID LOMINSKA/POLOGRAPHICS.COM

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

Juan Martín Nero (left, in black) meets Facundo Sola in the final of the US Open

THE ACTION lorida 26-Goal Season 50 F The highs and lows of the CV Whitney Cup, the USPA Gold Cup and the US Open at the International Polo Club 54

S 20-Goal Season U New rules and wild weather made for a memorable season at the IPC

56

ubai Gold Cup Series D Year seven of the tournament that helped establish the UAE as a major player

58

IP Snow Polo F Six teams took to the ice in below-zero temperatures in Tianjin, China

62

National 12-Goal A US$50,000 prize was on the line as teams battled it out in Florida

60

opa de las Naciones C Argentina, Chile and England faced off in this lively international tournament

64

61

TF International Cup P Polo’s bright young stars went head to head as part of the PTF’s international exchange programme

opa República C Playing alongside his two sons was a career highlight for accomplished Argentine player Bartolomé Castagnola

65

I nternational at Hickstead England took on the United States in an exciting match of arena polo

follow @hurlinghampolo

49 ACTION OPENER KB MF EOG.indd 49

49

03/06/2016 12:38

ACTION FLORIDA 26-GOAL SEASON, IPC, WELLINGTON, FLORIDA, USA, FEBRUARY–APRIL 2016

FLORIDA 26-GOAL SEASON

With many of the sport’s top-rated players convening for weeks of world-class polo, all three tournaments in the Sunshine State were packed with excitement, reports Alex Webbe

CV WHITNEY CUP ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ So reads the opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, and so it was for the International Polo Club as the 2016 season got underway.

Early rains caused the unprecedented cancellation of two feature Sunday matches in 20-goal competition, and the 26-goal season kicked off with only seven teams– the lowest number competing for the CV Whitney Cup in recent years. The residual effects of the intermittent rain throughout the season’s first

50

50 53 ACTION 26 goal Florida MF EOG BD.indd 50

couple of months had a resounding effect on the fields – the uneven ground caused by the rain cost the dribblers and the ball handlers dearly. The superior ball control displayed in 2015 by players such as Polito Pieres and Facundo Pieres was negated and, on the whole, the teams whose players adapted best to the conditions were rewarded.

Orchard Hill (Polito Pieres, Julian de Lusarreta, Facundo Pieres and Steve Van Andel) returned as the defending CV Whitney Cup champions, and the field, though small, was one of the most competitive in many seasons.

White Birch (Hilario Ulloa, Ezequiel Ferrario,

Mariano Aguerre and Peter Brant) returned to the International Polo Club for the first time in several years and John Muse’s Lucchese team (John Muse, Nico Pieres, Magoo Laprida and Sapo Caset) were making their first appearance in 26-goal play. An Audi team (Marc Ganzi, Rodrigo Andrade, Gonzalito Pieres and Freddie Mannix), who were very competitive last year, would be returning intact, and Coca-Cola (Gillian Johnston, Sugar Erskine, Julio Arellano and Miguel Novillo Astrada) had returned Miguel Astrada to their line-up for the season. Bob Jornayvaz and Adolfo Cambiaso would be returning, and Valiente even added a second

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

ACTION

Opposite Polito Pieres celebrates in the final of the CV Whitney Cup Below Alejo Taranco chases Fred Mannix in the USPA Gold Cup final

DAVID LOMINSKA/POLOGRAPHICS.COM; LILA PHOTOS/LILAPHOTOS.COM

The uneven ground caused by the rain cost the dribblers and ball handlers dearly

team to help fill out the ranks. Valiente II was made up of Bob Jornayvaz, Facundo Sola, Tomas García del Río and Diego Cavanagh.

Orchard Hill didn’t play up to their potential in the opening game, but still managed to down Valiente 11–8. A dangerous combination in 2015, 10-goalers Facundo Pieres and Polito Pieres looked more like competitors than teammates, and their game play showed it.

In the previous season, Polito Pieres allowed his cousin Facundo to make the plays and score the goals, but in the 2016 season it appeared that he wanted to prove his worth to the team by scoring his own goals.

Peter Brant and his White Birch team made a triumphant return to Florida as they sent Valiente II packing behind a 13–11 win, and Audi managed to get by Coca-Cola 9–7, to complete first-round play.

I’ve always looked upon the CV Whitney Cup as one of the most challenging of the three 26-goal tournaments in Florida, because of the single-elimination aspect of it and the fact that this is the very first time that many of the teams have played together.

In spite of a talented line-up, Lucchese had a first-round bye, but got battered by Orchard Hill in semi-final action 12–7, as Muse and company got an unfriendly welcome to the 26-goal ranks. A veteran Audi team edged White Birch 9–8 in the second semi-final, setting up a final between Audi and Orchard Hill.

Orchard Hill entered the final as the defending champion, but a strong Audi line-up outscored them 3–0 in the third chukka to take a 5–2 halftime lead. The teams traded goals in the next two chukkas, with Orchard Hill closing to within a goal of the lead. Audi rode into the final chukka defending a delicate 9–8 advantage.

The final chukka belonged to Orchard Hill and de Lusarreta. Facundo Pieres tied the game at 9–9 on a 30-yard penalty shot and de Lusarreta added his fifth and sixth goals of the game for the 11–9 Orchard Hill win. MVP honours went to de Lusarreta, while Steve Van Andel’s Norma (played by de Lusarreta) was named Best Playing Pony.

USPA GOLD CUP The field of teams grew to eight as the Gold Cup got started. Melissa Ganzi’s Flexjet entry (Melissa Ganzi, Agustín Merlos, Sebastian Merlos and Nic Roldan) appeared along with a Dubai team (Rashid Albwardy, Alejo Taranco, Facundo Sola and Adolfo Cambiaso) who had plucked Adolfo Cambiaso, the top-rated player in the game, from the Valiente roster for the tournament. Valiente (Bob Jornayvaz, Santiago Chavanne, Diego Cavanagh and Tomas García del Río) would compete without their star player in a pre-arranged agreement with Dubai.

Four games opened the tournament, with Valiente finding it difficult to navigate without Cambiaso. They suffered losses to Flexjet, Audi and Coca-Cola and were eliminated. Dubai ran over White Birch, as long-time teammates in English high-goal polo Cambiaso and Dubai patron Rashid Albwardy reunited on the Florida fields. Dubai flexed their muscles in defeating Orchard Hill 10–7, with the two top-rated players in the game – Cambiaso and Facundo

follow @hurlinghampolo

50 53 ACTION 26 goal Florida MF EOG BD.indd 51

Pieres – facing off against one another. They went on to sweep preliminary play with an 11–6 win over Lucchese, earning a semi-final berth with a perfect 3–0 record in their bracket.

Audi had a bump in the road in defence of their 2015 Gold Cup title, losing to Flexjet 11–9. Finishing at 2–1, Audi managed to earn the other semi-final berth, while Orchard Hill, Lucchese, Coca-Cola and Flexjet would play mini-quarterfinals, with the winners advancing to the tournament semi-finals.

Orchard Hill took the biggest hit of the day during their match against Flexjet, with 10-goaler Facundo Pieres forced to leave the field in the opening chukka as the result of a broken finger.

He was replaced by 9-goaler Hilario Ulloa (White Birch had been eliminated, allowing Ulloa to substitute for Pieres) and Orchard Hill played on. Orchard Hill was on top 7–1 in the third chukka when the unthinkable happened – Polito Pieres was sent flying to the ground when his horse slipped and fell. Pieres suffered a shoulder separation and was removed from the game. The horse was unharmed and was led

51

03/06/2016 12:38

ACTION FLORIDA 26-GOAL SEASON, IPC, WELLINGTON, FLORIDA, USA, FEBRUARY–APRIL 2016

away. Eight-goaler Lucas Criado replaced Polito Pieres and the game continued with Orchard Hill going on to beat Flexjet 12–9, despite losing their two top players.

In the second mini-quarterfinal of the day, Coca-Cola won their third game in four tries, breaking open a tight match with three fifthchukka goals and racing past Lucchese 11–8.

Coca-Cola gave Dubai a scare in the first semi-final before losing in a game that was closer than the 11–9 score might indicate.

In the second semi-final of the day, Audi were determined to defend their 2015 USPA Gold Cup Championship successfully and, although Orchard Hill had Facundo Pieres back in the line-up, they were forced to use Hilario Ulloa in place of the injured Polito Pieres. Orchard Hill rode out to an 8–7 halftime lead, but Audi came back for the 12–10 win.

Ulloa scored six times on the day and Facundo Pieres added a single goal, proving that, for a team to be effective offensively, it has to have all its weapons working. Both Ulloa and Facundo Pieres are capable of putting big numbers on the scoreboard, but they need to have the ball to do so.

With two of the same kind of player in the line-up, it’s difficult to give each of them the time with the ball that they need to be effective. The victory sent Audi into the Gold Cup final against Dubai.

Dubai had marched through the competition as they amassed a perfect 4–0 record, whereas Audi entered the final at 3–1, but they were the defending champions and they certainly weren’t going to give up easily.

In earlier games, Cambiaso was content to stir the pot and let Sola, Taranco and Albwardy take advantage of passes from the master, but this was the final, and Cambiaso always shines then.

The lead changed hands in the early going, as both teams struggled to control the game.

At the end of the first half, it was all even at 7–7.

Dubai raced out to a 10–7 lead in the fourth chukka, with Andrade scoring to keep Audi from getting shut out. Dubai took the lead 10–8.

Two fifth-chukka goals from Pieres went unanswered, as Audi tied the game at 10–10 with one chukka remaining in regulation time.

Cambiaso and Mannix traded goals in the sixth, with Cambiaso scoring on a penalty shot and Mannix scoring from the field, making it 11–11. A late Audi foul allowed Sola to covert the penalty shot for the goal. Dubai managed to run out the remaining two minutes for the 12–11 win and the 2016 USPA Gold Cup. Facundo Sola was named MVP, while Flo, a seven-year-old dark bay mare, earned Best Playing Pony honours. Flo is owned by Valiente and was played by Cambiaso.

In a consolation match for the Tesoro Cup, White Birch replaced Ferrario in their line-up with 7-goaler Mariano Obregon. They beat Valiente 13–9. A combination of team chemistry and horses were cited as the reason. The new line-up would remain in place for the US Open.

52

50 53 ACTION 26 goal Florida MF EOG BD.indd 52

here’s an example of a three line pull quote which can go in this space, move quote marks

US OPEN It was Orchard Hill’s fifth trip to the final of the US Open and Steve Van Andel pulled out all the stops in an effort to take it home, bringing in Argentine 10-goaler Juan Martín Nero in an attempt to fill the hole left by injured Polito Pieres.

Dubai coasted through the early competition, downing Coca-Cola 14–8, Valiente 9–6 and

White Birch 14–6, winning their bracket with a perfect 3–0 record and a bye into the semi-final. Cambiaso remained the general, but he continued to receive great support from every one of his teammates. Rashid Albwardy was reliable on defence and proved that he was capable of scoring when needed; Alejo Taranco blocked and fed the ball; and Facundo Sola proved to be a scoring threat.

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

ACTION

Gold Cup final, a game won by Dubai 12–11.

The results weren’t much different in this hotly contested game, with Dubai taking the win 13–11. The second final spot was earned

by Orchard Hill, who barely escaped a loss.

After running out to an early 6–2 lead, Orchard Hill needed an overtime goal to secure a 9–8 win over White Birch.

It was great to see Peter Brant return to the high-goal ranks, but he played well below his abilities. ‘I’m just not in shape,’ he offered after a Gold Cup match. Teammates pointed out that it had been several years since he competed at the 26-goal level and he was not up to speed.

follow @hurlinghampolo

50 53 ACTION 26 goal Florida MF EOG BD.indd 53

Clockwise from far left Rashid Albwardy’s Dubai won the USPA Gold Cup and reached the US Open final– a great feat; Adolfo Cambiaso attempts to stop Facundo Pieres in the final of the US Open; the winners of the US Open with chairman Joe Meyer

The final was set, with Orchard Hill making their fifth appearance – their second consecutive – in a US Open final, while Dubai would be riding into the final with a run of nine successive 26-goal victories and the USPA Gold Cup title.

Pieres scored the first goal of the game, but Dubai hammered back. A pair of goals from Sola and a single goal from Cambiaso gave an early 3–1 lead to Dubai. Two goals in the second and four more in the third had the Dubai defence sputtering. Dubai managed single goals from Albwardy and Sola (60-yard penalty conversion), but trailed 7–5 at the end of the first half.

Dubai had a strong fourth chukka, getting a goal from the field from Sola and a pair of penalty goals from Cambiaso. The Dubai defence was solid in the period, allowing only a single goal to Pieres on a 30-yard penalty conversion.

The fourth chukka ended in an 8–8 deadlock.

Cambiaso scored two goals from the field for Dubai in fifth-chukka action. Pieres added a goal on a 30-yard penalty shot, but Dubai remained in the lead, 10–9.

Orchard Hill rode back into the game in the sixth. Two 30-yard penalty goals from Cambiaso were countered by three goals from Pieres (two on penalty conversions). The game ended 12–12 and would have to be decided in overtime.

Dubai took control of the throw-in deep into the Orchard Hill-end, but were unable to score.

Each team had a number of opportunities to get on the scoreboard until Orchard Hill found themselves deep in the Dubai end.

A backhander from Nero to a centring Pieres was all the action needed as the waiting 10-goaler confidently drove it through the goalposts for the 13–12 victory. Pieres led the field in scoring, with 11 goals, eight on penalty shots, and was named MVP. A number of equestrian awards were presented at the end of the game, with the Willis Hartman Award for the Best Playing Pony in the open going to Diva Dos, played

by Juan Martín Nero and owned by Orchard Hill. Lufthansa was named 2016 Horse of the Year, played by Adolfo Cambiaso and owned

by Valiente. Adolfo Cambiaso and Valiente also received Best String.

DAVIDLOMINSKA/POLOGRAPHICS.COM; LILA PHOTOS/LILAPHOTOS.COM

Orchard Hill had a more difficult time beating Audi (12–10), Lucchese (11–9) and Flexjet (14–8). The addition of Juan Martín Nero to the Orchard Hill line-up allowed Facundo Pieres, a natural forward, to stretch the attack and put himself in scoring position. With Juan Martín Nero covering the back door and Julian de Lusarreta in support up front, the Orchard Hill attack was lethal. Team captain Steve Van Andel was not considered to be much of a threat either offensively or defensively, but his performance in the semi-final and final changed that view.

Dubai met Audi in the first semi-final of the tournament, in what was a rematch of the

53

03/06/2016 12:38

ACTION US 20-GOAL SEASON, IPC PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, USA, APRIL 2016

This page Cambiaso leads the pack in the pouring rain at the Ylvisaker semi-finals Opposite, from top Gillian Johnston in the Herbie Pennell final; Jesse Bray (right) in front of Hilario Ulloa in the Joe Barry final

US 20-GOAL SEASON

Buffeted by El Niño and swept along by new rules that dramatically sped up the pace, the high-polo season was a blend of washout and whirlwind, reports Darlene Ricker

The 2016 US season was one of great change.

Dubai made their US debut, White Birch returned to IPC for the first time since 2009, and a Dubai-Valiente collaboration shifted the paradigm for building a mega-team. It took time for all that to gel, but it was apparent from the start that an invisible ‘player’ was controlling the field: the new international rules.

Just weeks before, in Palermo, a triumvirate of national federations – Argentina, England and the United States – along with the Federation of International Polo, convened during the Argentine Open to create uniform standards to speed up the game. The new rules were

54

54 55 ACTION 20 goal KB BD EOG.indd 54

inaugurated in the 20-goal Herbie Pennell Cup opener at IPC on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. It was a rapid, rollicking match in which Coca-Cola, who later took the trophy, defeated Enigma, who were back for their second US season. The game’s lightning pace was a harbinger of the 2016 season: in more than 20 games, no fouls were called for one or two chukkas and the number of fouls decreased by 30 to 40 per cent – in some cases even 50 per cent. ‘Polo’s the fastest it has been in 10 years,’ said Charlie Muldoon, executive director of USPA Umpires and part of the team responsible for drafting the new guidelines.

Tournament play could not keep pace with El Niño, however, which brought torrential rains to South Florida. Postponements began to stack up, eventually requiring multiple games – on one occasion, as many as six – to be rescheduled on the same day. Several local clubs opened their fields to alleviate the pressure on IPC: at Valiente, the 20-goal Ylvisaker Cup semi-final between Valiente and Palm Beach Illustrated/Technogym was washed out after two chukkas and couldn’t be rescheduled for four days. By the time the rains began to abate, the 26-goal season was already under way with the CV Whitney Cup, causing the Ylvisaker final to be indefinitely

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

ACTION

Tournament play could not keep pace with El Niño, which brought torrential rains

DAVID LOMINSKA / POLOGRAPHICS.COM

postponed; the last word was that semi-finalists Valiente and Orchard Hill were going to flip a coin over the summer to decide the winner!

As he did last year, Adolfo Cambiaso jumped into the fray toward the end of the 20-goal season to warm up for the 26. He played for Valiente again in the Ylvisaker and the CV Whitney, but this season, donned Dubai’s jersey for the Gold Cup (which Dubai won) and the US Open (which Dubai lost to Orchard Hill by one goal). The teams began to discuss a collaboration, which would also include Valiente lending some horses to Dubai, the day after Valiente defeated Orchard Hill in the 2015 US Open. Part two is playing out this summer in England.

Dubai, of course, were high on the radar at IPC. Orchard Hill barrelled into the season intent on containing Dubai and fared better than most. Propelled by alternating 10-goaler Pieres cousins Facundo and Polito, Orchard Hill handed Dubai a whopping 17–9 defeat in the Joe Barry quarter-finals. As the 20-goal season advanced, Dubai’s young patron, Rashid Albwardy, grew into a serious force. Orchard Hill narrowly defeated Dubai in the Ylvisaker semis, edging it out by one goal in the most exciting low-scoring game of the season, which ended 4–3.

Consistently outstanding play by Hilario Ulloa and Cambiaso protégé Alejo Taranco – a dose of déjà vu from their performances in Palermo – resulted in their US handicaps being elevated after the 2016 season (Ulloa to 10, Taranco to 7). Taranco was as effective on offence as defence, with his primary goal, he said, to ‘get the ball to Adolfo and keep everyone away from him’.

White Birch made their long-awaited return to IPC in the Ylvisaker, but had to wait until the 26 for Ulloa to come on board, as he had signed with Villa del Lago for the 20. Ulloa stood out as the high scorer for his team, regularly making six or more goals on the day. In the Joe Barry final, he was the major hurdle for Palm Beach Illustrated/ Technogym, who pulled off an astounding lastgasp win. With just six seconds remaining, a triple hand-off from his teammates delivered the ball to Nacho Badiola, who ran it into goal as though the devil were on his heels. Word spread about PBI/Technogym’s formidable line-up of young pros. After an Ylvisaker match-up, Cambiaso exchanged astonished looks with Bob Jornayvaz and exclaimed of Jesse Bray, with whom he had engaged in some rugged ride-offs: ‘That kid is one strong player!’

Read our ‘Saddle Up With’ Q&A with Bray on p15

follow @hurlinghampolo

54 55 ACTION 20 goal KB BD EOG.indd 55

55

03/06/2016 12:39

ACTION DUBAI POLO GOLD CUP SERIES, DUBAI POLO & EQUESTRIAN CLUB, JANUARY–MARCH 2016

DUBAI GOLD CUP SERIES The 2016 instalment of this exciting 18-goal series helps to cement the UAE’s reputation as a big player in the sport, writes Carolina Beresford

56

56 57 ACTION Dubai BD KB EOG.indd 56

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:40

ACTION

GONZALO ETCHEVERRY

The polo world migrated east in January to kick-start the 2016 polo season, as the 18-goal Dubai Polo Gold Cup Series entered its seventh year. The series, held at Dubai Polo & Equestrian Club, is made up of the two highest-rated polo tournaments in the region: the McLaren Silver Cup and the Julius Baer Gold Cup. The level of polo in the United Arab Emirates has increased steadily as more of the world’s best players choose to play in Dubai over the US or the Dominican Republic. This season was no exception, as 10-goal superstar Pablo Mac Donough rejoined Zedan; Lucas Monteverde (9) represented UAE; Alejandro Novillo Astrada (8) was introduced to Mahra; and Guillermo Terrera (8) played for Bin Drai.

Six teams played the McLaren Silver Cup. Zedan, Bin Drai and Wolves all qualified for the semi-finals with a 2:1 record. UAE had only won once in the tournament (in overtime), but they managed to defeat Habtoor and Mahra in the penalty shoot-outs to earn the last semi-final spot.

The semi-final started well for UAE, but Amr

Zedan’s team turned the game around in the second chukka. Even though Monteverde tied the game 7–7 in the third, Zedan took control of the second half and secured a place in the final. Bin Drai’s semi-final run was not as tough – despite Wolves working hard in defence, Terrera, supported by Raúl Laplacette, controlled the game and claimed a 9–5 win.

Bin Drai would face Zedan in the Silver Cup final. The two teams had met in the qualifying rounds, and Bin Drai had won 10–8. Their confidence was high. Bin Drai showed their strength as they finished the first chukka with a 3–0 advantage, but Zedan found their momentum and Bin Drai would trail for the rest of the game.

By the fourth, Zedan was leading 9–6; a very tight last chukka saw their title threatened, but MVP Mac Donough showed his 10-goal status and sealed the deal for Zedan, 10–9.

All was still to play for as nine teams – a record number – signed up for the coveted Julius Baer Gold Cup. Zedan, recent winner of the Silver Cup, were set on defending their 2015 Gold Cup title.

Opposite The UAE team celebrate their Gold Cup victory This page His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum presents UAE patron Her Highness Sheikha Maitha with her trophy

follow @hurlinghampolo

56 57 ACTION Dubai BD KB EOG.indd 57

This year has been important for polo in the region, with huge steps forward

But Mac Donough suffered a hard fall in the fourth chukka of the first match and left the field with a fractured tibia. Despite losing their star player, Zedan won all their games and qualified for the semi-finals.

After a less-than-convincing Silver Cup performance, HH Sheikha Maitha bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s UAE team kicked off the Gold Cup with their best match of the season, showing great teamwork as young Englishman Jack Hyde (3) scored five goals.

They continued improving throughout the tournament and secured a place in the semis alongside Bin Drai, Mahra and Zedan.

The semi-finals brought several surprises.

Mahra, led by Alejandro Novillo Astrada, defeated Bin Drai, one of the most powerful teams of the tournament; Rashid Al Habtoor and his boys won the game 8–6 to secure the first spot in the Gold Cup final. The second semi-final saw defending champions Zedan face UAE. The game got off to a powerful start for the latter as they took an impressive 7-1 lead in the second chukka. With Juan Ruíz Guiñazú and Matías Torres Zavaleta completing the line-up, Zedan made a comeback in the fifth. It was 11-all when the final bell rang and the match was forced into overtime. Zedan fought hard, but Monteverde successfully converted a spot penalty to put UAE through to the final.

Mahra had played a strong season and defeated favourites Bin Drai in the semi-finals; this would be their first time in the Gold Cup final. Despite a lacklustre performance in the Silver Cup, UAE had gone from strength to strength in the Gold. It was expected to be a tight game, but UAE overpowered Mahra from the first throw-in. Monteverde dictated play and Hyde was useful in attack. With only a chukka remaining, UAE had secured a comfortable five-goal lead. Mahra battled back in the last, but UAE kept control to secure a 10–7 win and their first Gold Cup title.

The victory marks a new phase for UAE. ‘We have set goals for the next few seasons,’ explains HH Sheikha Maitha. ‘We will play here and then have a solid start in England. This year has been very important for polo in the region, with huge changes and steps forward. There are plans in place for an official committee, new fields and new teams. It’s all very exciting.’ With new management and a world-class team, the UAE Polo organisation is preparing to make a global comeback. And Dubai is the perfect place to start.

57

03/06/2016 12:40

ACTION FIP SNOW POLO WORLD CUP, TIANJIN, CHINA, JANUARY 2016

FIP SNOW POLO

The fifth edition of the FIP Snow Polo World Cup almost didn’t happen. It was a late call by China to host the tournament again, and it wasn’t until 15 December, just over a month beforehand, that FIP alerted me that it might still be taking place.

The on-off saga then ran until 19 January and, believing it was all off, I was actually at the semifinals of the BMW B Grimm Thai Polo Open in sunny Pattaya when I was told to rush to China.

Thirty-two hours later, I had swapped my swimsuit for long johns and checked into a freezing Tianjin Metropolitan Polo Club.

Getting a team of officials there was a job in itself. Benjamín Araya was in the Dominican Republic, so Gines Bargallo took over the role of horse master. Umpire Nicolas Scortichini had been waiting in Dubai for confirmation to fly to China. It did not come until two hours after he

58

58 59 ACTION Snow Polo KB BD EOG.indd 58

had arrived safely home in Argentina. Rafael Silva had already accepted another job, so I promoted Qubilai Alam from steward to umpire.

Last year’s finalists, Brazil and USA, weren’t able to obtain visas in time, so the tournament was reduced to six teams from the original eight.

The tournament draw was conducted on 23 January, with teams being grouped in two zones of three. The format had teams playing inside their zones, with the top two teams in each zone proceeding to the semi-finals.

Home favourite Hong Kong was drawn with Argentina and Canada, while England drew the tougher group with Chile and France.

Canada was blown out of the tournament, losing both its matches by ten goals. It meant that Hong Kong and Argentina progressed to the semi-finals without being really tested.

England and Chile had to work much harder against France. The French team – unable to find the magic of 2015 that led to a fourth-place finish – went out after two closely fought games.

The first semi-final pitted Hong Kong against Chile, with Matías Vial Pérez playing for Hong Kong against his own national team.

Tied 7–7 in sudden death, Alejandro Vial Pérez of Chile sportingly called the ball out for a safety 30-yarder. It was converted by James Harper to give Hong Kong the win. It was a true act of sportsmanship that was applauded by all players and won Alejandro ‘Tano’ Vial Pérez an FIP medal for sportsmanship.

The second semi-final was also a closely fought game. England, with Jack Richardson showing the form that made him MVP in 2014, edged past Argentina 5–4.

TIANJIN GOLDIN METROPOLITAN POLO CLUB

Just half a dozen teams made it to the FIP Snow Polo World Cup in China, yet it was a thrilling event, reports Peter Abisheganaden

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

ACTION

Opposite Team Hong Kong China and Team England battle it out This page Gathering for a group photo in Tianjin

The final between Hong Kong and England was a repeat of the 2014 final. England was quickly away and got the first three goals of the match.

Hong Kong came back strongly in the second chukka, tying the score before taking the lead in the third. England finally got another goal in the dying seconds of the penultimate chukka but, try as they might, the English team could not crack Hong Kong’s muscular defence, and it was Matías Vial Pérez who scored midway through the final chukka to win it for Hong Kong.

The subsidiary final was a South American one, between Chile and Argentina. It was one of the best matches ever played on the snow at Tianjin, ending 8–7 in Chile’s favour.

As a tournament, the fifth edition of the FIP Snow Polo World Cup was probably the best ever.

The fifth edition of the FIP Snow Polo World Cup was probably the best ever

follow @hurlinghampolo

58 59 ACTION Snow Polo KB BD EOG.indd 59

With only six teams, the pressure on the horses was markedly reduced. The temperatures cooperated, getting down to -25˚C on some days.

The ice was laser-levelled to perfection, making the surface the most consistent we have ever had.

Over the past five years, the FIP Snow Polo World Cup in China has proven itself to be a true world cup tournament. Long may it continue.

59

03/06/2016 12:39

ACTION VII COPA DE LAS NACIONES, PALERMO, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, APRIL 2016

COPA DE LAS NACIONES Though this international series held great potential, rough play and a lack of fast runs made for a disappointing tournament, says Héctor Martelli

The seventh edition of the Copa de las Naciones, hosted by the Argentine Polo Association as part of the autumn season in Argentina, kicked off on 16 April despite a considerable delay due to rain.

The series, held at Palermo, showcased three countries in competition, with line-ups comprising native players from Argentina, England and Chile.

The team line-ups were as follows: Argentina: Bartolomé Castagnola Jr (3), Joaquín Pittaluga (7), Eduardo Novillo Astrada Jr (9), Juan M Zubía (5); England: Charlie Hanbury (4), Mark Tomlinson (6), James Beim (7), James Harper (6); Chile: Max Silva (5), Felipe Vercellino (5), Jaime García Huidobro (7), Matías Vial (6).

The original fixture had some changes due to the delay, so Argentina and England played the opening match, a derby of international polo that’s usually the last one of this tournament.

England, who received one goal on handicap, dominated the two first chukkas, led by Mark Tomlinson’s usual hard work and James Beim’s fast play. Action was levelled at the third chukka,

60

60 ACTION Nations Cup KB EOG.indd 60

when Argentina made a comeback and tied at 5–5, thanks to outstanding performances by Pittaluga, the match’s MVP, and Zubía.

From then on, Argentina developed a strong team play, based on Novillo Astrada’s experience and Zubía’s strong defensive work. By the end of the fifth chukka, Argentina had taken a five-goal lead. But in the last chukka, Tomlinson and Beim, well-supported by Harper, managed to get England back in the game. They produced enough goals to cut the margin to one goal with only a minute remaining, but Argentina scored once more to take the 11–9 win.

Chile got a well-deserved 10–9 victory over England in the second game. England had a good start, with a 4–0 advantage in the first chukka, but Chile closed the gap and outscored England 4–0 in the fifth chukka. Beim and Tomlinson played well once again, though the latter didn’t perform as well as he did against Argentina.

The final match of the series was the clash of the South Americans, and Chile and Argentina

reached the deciding game both undefeated.

However, it was a very disappointing game, due to rough plays and many fouls. As a result, Chile, who received one goal on handicap, could retain that one-goal advantage to secure the final 7–6 win. The match was so close and rough that, of the 13 goals, three were scored from the field and only three on penalty conversions. I don’t consider that any of the eight men played at their highest level throughout the game.

Despite the two first games showcasing open and fast polo, the three teams didn’t show enough team play, and the games lacked those fast runs.

Without a doubt, the championship game that featured two teams rated at 23 goals and 24 goals on the ground was not suitable for the tournament’s category. Instead of playing polo, they attempted to take advantage through fouls and rough play. These tactics don’t do any good to polo, which is a really fantastic sport for the fans to watch – not to mention a pleasure for the players to play – when it’s fast and open.

PABLO RAMIREZ

The victorious Chilean team

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

ACTION PTF INTERNATIONAL CUP, GRAND CHAMPIONS POLO CLUB, FLORIDA, USA, FEBRUARY 2016

The future generation of professional polo players line up after prize-giving

PTF INTERNATIONAL CUP

CHUKKER TV

The tournament provided plenty of exciting play – and an opportunity to see the game’s future stars in action, say Arianna Delin and Sharon Robb

On 21 February, the next generation of polo players battled it out during the Polo Training Foundation’s annual International Cup at Grand Champions Polo Club in Wellington, Florida. Grand Champions Polo Club and Halo Polo provided most of the horses, and Delicioso, ridden by Lolly Stanhope-White and owned by Halo Polo, won the Best Playing Pony title.

It was the final US appearance for the English team of Lolly Stanhope-White, Alex Webb, Rob Fleming and Angus Hamilton, who ended a week’s stay in Wellington as part of the PTF Exchange Program. ‘This has been such a great experience for us all,’ Fleming said. ‘It would be great to see more of these programmes in the future.’

Boys International, featuring Santos Bollini, Juanse Olivera, Harrison Azzaro and Poroto Cambiaso, dominated the field and defeated England 6–1 in the championship final. Santos Bollini, 16, of Wellington High School, scored three goals in the final and was named MVP.

In the consolation final, USA Boys (Nico Diaz Alberdi, Timmy Dutta, Grant Ganzi and Matias Gonzalez) defeated Girls International (Mia Cambiaso, Mia Novillo Astrada, Hope Arellano and Riley Ganzi) 4–1. Mia Novillo Astrada was later named MVP for the consolation final.

In the opening games, England defeated Girls International 3–0 and advanced into the final, while Boys International tied the USA Boys 3–3.

In the championship final, Cambiaso scored the opening goal on a penalty shot, followed by Fleming, who scored the first goal for England from the field, tying the game at 1–1.

Azzaro took advantage of a broken play to give Boys International a 2–1 lead, followed by a 40-yard penalty goal for a 3–1 lead. In the second chukka, Azzaro scored his third consecutive goal, followed by Bollini, who scored the final two goals. England had its share of scoring opportunities but could not convert.

Hamilton said, ‘The majority of the good players

follow @hurlinghampolo

61 ACTION Boys Intl KB BD EOG.indd 61

here are seriously good, and probably better than the best players in England.’

One of the day’s highlights was seeing the players’ fathers coaching and cheering their children. These included polo greats Adolfo Cambiaso, Mike Azzaro, Miguel Novillo Astrada, Julio Arellano and Juan Bollini.

The Polo Training Foundation has been instrumental in the growth of junior and youth polo players, with the international exchange programmes becoming increasingly popular.

It offers training programmes, lessons and tournaments in the hope of encouraging the sport’s development. Melissa Ganzi, a long-time supporter of grass-roots polo and the PTF, has also played a key role in developing young players.

She has worked alongside The Polo School at Grand Champions and Aspen Valley Polo Club in Colorado to boost the sport. The Polo School operates in Wellington from January through June and September through November.

61

03/06/2016 12:38

ACTION GRAND CHAMPIONS NATIONAL 12-GOAL, FLORIDA, USA, MARCH 2016

NATIONAL 12-GOAL In an action-packed final, four Team USPA members propelled Palm Beach Illustrated to victory and a US$50,000 cash prize, reports Terry Duffy

For polo enthusiasts, the sheer love of the game – win or lose – propels them through tournament competitions. The investment in time, quality of horses, a player’s own skill, and perhaps a trophy are the reward for a game well played.

Grand Champions Polo Club upended the typical tournament scenario when it added a US$50,000 cash prize to the venerable National 12-Goal. Now in its third year, the much-anticipated medium-goal tournament draws top talent and has become a fixture for this innovative establishment.

At the 2016 National 12-Goal, six teams entered the fray in the hope of landing the big payday. Palm Beach Equine, winner of the 2014 tournament, and Casablanca were early

62

62 63 ACTION 50k Grand Champions KB BD.indd 62

favourites, and Pony Express, Palm Beach Illustrated, 5 Star Builders/Tackeria and Wildcat rounded out the bracket play with their own talented teams.

Palm Beach Illustrated and Pony Express each drew a bye in the first round of play – that is, they sat it out, to balance the uneven number of teams – and waited out the results of the early qualifying games. Meanwhile, 5 Star Builders/ Tackeria scored a decisive victory over Palm Beach Equine as Casablanca dispatched Ryan Gilbertson’s Wildcat in their first-round match-up. These results set up a blistering semi-final, with Pony Express facing Casablanca and Palm Beach Illustrated going up against a talented 5 Star Builders/Tackeria.

Pony Express fielded the Daniels brothers, Benji and Justin, who played alongside veteran six-goalers Tomas Goti and Bautista Urbina.

Casablanca included Grant Ganzi, Juancito Bollini, Leo Mandelbaum and England’s Mark Tomlinson. The brothers Daniels, Bollini and Mandelbaum all contributed goals for their teams, but the game was driven by the scoring efforts of Goti and Tomlinson, who tallied 11 between them. Casablanca held the edge into the waning minutes of the sixth chukka, when a superb goal from Justin Daniels, his first of the game, forced it into extra time, before a follow-up by Tomas Goti propelled Pony Express into the final, 9–8.

The second semi-final game was just as close and, much like the first pairing, came down to the

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:39

ACTION

Opposite The USPA's Kris Bowman with winners, Palm Beach Illustrated This page Jesse Bray, on the ball, chased by Tomas Goti

GONZALO ETCHEVERRY; ELIZABETH HEDLEY

The tournament has become a fixture for this innovative establishment

final seconds of play. Palm Beach Illustrated brought four Team USPA members to the pitch in the shape of Todd Thurston, Jared Zenni, Geronimo Obregon and Jesse Bray. 5 Star Builders/Tackeria represented a formidable opponent for Palm Beach Illustrated – tested by their earlier win over Palm Beach Equine, Kristos Magrini, Matt Coppola, Joaquin Panelo

follow @hurlinghampolo

62 63 ACTION 50k Grand Champions KB BD.indd 63

and Michel Dorignac racked up three goals in the fifth chukka to tie the game six-all. With the game tied again at 7–7 in the sixth, a late foul by 5 Star/Tackeria allowed Bray to hit the go-ahead goal from the penalty line to rack up a score of 8–7 for Palm Beach Illustrated.

The victory required the young team to draw support from all four of its players. Zenni and Bray enjoyed the advantage of having played together previously in an earlier incarnation of the team roster – Palm Beach Illustrated/ Technogym featured the two Team USPA members and two ascending six-goalers, Facundo Obregon and Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Badiola.

The talented 20-goal Palm Beach Illustrated/ Technogym squad downed veteran line-ups from Coca-Cola, La Indiana, Enigma and Villa del Lago on their way to win the 2016 Joe Barry Memorial Cup, and battled to the semi-finals of the Ylvisaker Cup before being stopped by a Valiente team featuring Adolfo Cambiaso.

On their way to the final, both Palm Beach Illustrated and Pony Express received the aforementioned bye in the first round. They had each won hotly contested semi-final matches by single-goal margins. They seemed evenly matched going into the game on Grand Champions’ No 1 field and a large crowd assembled to watch.

Pony Express registered two quick goals from Goti in the opening minutes of the first chukka, but Palm Beach Illustrated found their footing with three of their own and a 3–2 lead after one period of play. They continued to dominate, with all four players contributing to the score and, after five chukkas, were leading 11–8.

It looked like the Team USPA-supported foursome might cruise to victory, but Pony Express would have none of it. Goti got things rolling in the sixth, with a goal from the field.

Justin Daniels followed and Urbina added two more goals to tie the game 12–12 with under two minutes to play. Then a penalty called on Pony Express placed the ball at midfield for Palm Beach Illustrated. Jesse Bray took the hit for his team, and what a shot it was – as Chukker.tv commentator Toby Wayman described it, in ‘true Joe Barry style’, he crushed the ball from 150 yards to within feet of the goal. A heads-up Geronimo Obregon coaxed the ball through the posts for a 13–12 advantage – and a US$50,000 win for his team.

63

03/06/2016 12:40

ACTION COPA REPÚBLICA ARGENTINA, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, MARCH 2016

El Paso and La Natividad fight for the title on Palermo’s prestigious Number One ground

COPA REPÚBLICA

Bartolomé Castagnola has reached incredible heights in polo. A seven-time winner of the Argentine Open and former 10-goal player, ‘Lolo’ is one of the greats. But the culmination of his career on the field came one afternoon in late March this year, when he won the Copa República Argentina alongside his two sons: 15-year-old Bartolomé Jr and 13-year-old Camilo.

The Copa República Argentina is a national tournament unlike any other – with no handicap limit, any team with 0-40 goals is eligible to compete. It also gives teams from different provinces in Argentina the chance to compete on Palermo’s Number One ground, the most prestigious polo field in the world.

Sixteen teams compete over 10 days, with three wins necessary to qualify for the semi-finals.

Lolo’s team, La Natividad, beat La Irenita Alegria 21–19 to finish top of their zone, before taking El Desafío 19–14 in the semi-finals. La Natividad’s Federico von Potobsky received an elbow injury at the beginning of the match and had to be replaced by substitute Jota Chavanne (5).

La Natividad were six chukkas away from the title, but for Lolo (8) the tournament was about

64

64 ACTION Copa Republica KB BD.indd 64

more than silverware and ego. ‘Do you know what it is like to have a son, watch him grow up, and then play on Palermo’s Number One ground with him? The seven Open titles are great, but this is different,’ he explained. ‘The final is going to be a tough match, but I want my kids to have fun. Before every game I tell them to enjoy it and to believe in themselves.’

La Natividad (17) and El Paso Polo Ranch team (22) played an exciting and open final.

La Natividad started with a 5-goal handicap advantage and never lost their lead. El Paso brought the difference down to three goals in the second chukka (6–9), but La Natividad regained their rhythm to win the third, 3–0. Camilo was

I’ve won many tournaments... but this is the best thing that has happened to me in polo

solid throughout, making key runs to score seven of his team’s 18 goals. Lolo’s experience and Chavanne’s defense allowed young Bartolomé (3) and Camilo (1) to shine. Camilo scored the final goal to seal the 18–13 victory; he is now the youngest player to have won the title in the Cup’s history (the record was previously held

by Javier Novillo Astrada, who won it in 1990, aged 14). Not only did La Natividad win the Copa República Argentina, but they maintained their 5-goal handicap difference in the final score.

‘I’ve won many tournaments, but I would compare this victory to winning the 1997 Open, with my father watching in the stands,’ said Lolo.

‘This is the best thing that has happened to me in polo.’ The last time Lolo won the República was in 1997, alongside his cousin Marianella Castagnola, Guillermo ‘Sapo’ Caset and Adolfo Cambiaso. But this victory meant something more. ‘In the final chukka, when I realised we had won it, I got emotional thinking about all the people who work in La Natividad’s organisation – those who stayed with me when I left La Dolfina, those who risked everything to come and start something new. Look how far we’ve come.’

KATERINA MORGAN

La Natividad’s victory at Palermo in March was an emotional one for Bartolomé Castagnola, as Carolina Beresford discovered

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:38

ACTION INTERNATIONAL AT HICKSTEAD, WEST SUSSEX, UK, MARCH 2016

USA’s Kareem Rosser (in blue) and Ed Banner-Eve battle for the ball as the two 10-goalers eye each other up

INTERNATIONAL AT HICKSTEAD

IMAGESOFPOLO.COM

Playing with some of the sport’s top players made for a game that was as challenging as it was exhilarating, writes Ed Banner-Eve

I felt a huge sense of honour to be selected as the third member of the UK team, alongside Johnny Good and top British arena player Chris Hyde, to play the USA on 5 March at Hickstead.

The pressure was on. Much as at the pony-club finals, where my polo career began.

My family has supported me from the start to become a professional player and, 13 years on, I still love every moment and have played all over the world. I can’t say I prefer playing in the arena or on grass – they are fairly different and the challenges vary. I can imagine that the crashing and bashing in the arena looks brutal to the spectator, yet the rules are set for the safety of the pony. Given that you have only a 300ft x 150ft space in which to manoeuvre, the pace of the action is faster than grass. And I love it. The ponies are fitter and more compact. They need to be quicker and sharper, to accelerate and turn in a nanosecond. None of my arena horses exceeds 15 hands, as a low centre of gravity is needed.

I have represented England around the world on grass, but it was a great privilege to play for my country in the Hickstead arena. Hearing the national anthem was a momentous occasion.

The atmosphere was positively electric.

I had just returned from the season in Argentina, where I had been playing on grass. I handled the swap of surface by stick-and-balling for hours the day before to adjust to the space, the speed and, of course, the wall. It comes up pretty quick sometimes. My brother Alec had been playing the arena season in the UK, so all the ponies were fit and he kindly lent me some of his. The ponies we played were Malacara, Rio, Venice and the two powerhouses that are Laka and Wendy, who are the most effective shortdistance horses I’ve ever ridden. They can turn 180˚ at any speed. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to catch my man on the day.

The match was incredibly exciting, and to be on the same surface as the world’s two top

I had to mark my opposition well and stick to him like bobbles on a jumper

follow @hurlinghampolo

65 ACTION Hickstead BD MF EOG.indd 65

10-goalers is nerve-racking to say the least.

I mounted my ponies early so that I could switch the nerves into adrenaline.

The team had a practice match prior to Hickstead, but Chris and Johnny are so experienced at the game and communicating about play that they can carry any side to victory.

I was very focused and knew I had to come out with all guns blazing. I had to mark my opposition well, not give him any space, and stick to him like bobbles on a jumper. The Americans were equally focused and all so quick on the ball.

Pelon Escapite was like a player possessed, and extremely tricky to catch. He thoroughly deserved his MVP award. Kareem Rosser was trying so hard he slipped his pony a few times.

Overall, the game was a fantastic display of fast technique and horsemanship, with several unique goals. Chris was great in taking the penalties and clearing the ball, and Johnny was solid as a tank. I loved every chance I got to show off my hand-eye-to-ball skills – spectators don’t get to see these details on grass.

Hickstead was truly an honour to experience, and winning 16–14 is a lasting memory that my family and I will talk about for a very long time.

65

03/06/2016 12:39

ARCHIVE

French and Argentine teams on the podium at Chantilly, 1996

CREAM OF THE CROP Since 1996, the 500-acre Apremont Farm, bordering the Chantilly Forest, has been home to Patrick Guerrand-Hermès’ Polo Club du Domaine de Chantilly. 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of the club, which, in its two decades under the guidance of its director, Philippe Perrier, has become the largest club in France of its kind, and is considered one of the most prestigious polo institutions in Europe.

The club has always had a unique stake in the sport, partly due to its location. By setting the clubhouse in Apremont, Guerrand-Hermès and Perrier consciously contributed to the area’s relationship with equine history. Robert de Rothschild, who founded Deauville International Polo Club in 1907, had himself chosen Apremont in the hope of unifying France’s capital of horses

66

66 ARCHIVE KB BD EOG.indd 66

(Chantilly) and the leagues of world polo. The region’s rich association with equine culture and sport is epitomised with the Great Stables of the Château de Chantilly, which, like the polo club, sit some 40 miles north of Paris. The stabling at today’s Chantilly Polo Club is vast, with 30 paddocks housing hundreds of horses.

While the club is famed for its facilities – which include nine irrigated polo fields, two sand fields and an academy run by Perrier and internationally revered player Brieuc Rigaux – the longevity of the institution is also a testament to its dedicated community. The clubhouse prides itself on being ‘a friendly place where all polo fans meet’, and where players traditionally congregate after each game among past trophies and antique polo memorabilia.

On 22 May, the club hosted a series of events to celebrate its anniversary and achievements.

During its 20 years, it has hosted and organised countless competitions, including the World Championships, two European Championships and the French Open. The festivities in May featured a match between Argentina and France, who played behind Rigaux (6). Before the game, each equestrian discipline for which Chantilly is known was represented in the Equestrian World Parade: racing, hunting, carriage driving and showjumping, to recognise the club hosting the Global Champions Tour the following week.

In all, the 20th-anniversary celebrations were a testament to the club’s successful promotion of polo as a sport, and championed the work of devoted instructors and sponsors.

RB PRESSE

The Polo Club du Domaine de Chantilly marks 20 years as one of the most prominent – and most welcoming – clubs in Europe, writes Martha Norman

hurlinghampolo.com

03/06/2016 12:37

A C T I V E LY MANAGED INVESTMENTS. FOR A MORE ACTIVE R E T I R E M E N T.

An actively managed fund like Carmignac Patrimoine is more likely to provide you with the retirement you expect.

Still run by the same core team since launch, we always act with conviction, and frequently take individual, contrarian investment decisions.

Active management can result in temporary downturns for any fund.

However, Carmignac Patrimoine is designed for the long term, and has delivered an annualised performance of 8.29% over a 25-year period*.

Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future performance, and the Fund presents a risk of loss of capital. carmignac.co.uk

For more information, please contact our local team: CARMIGNAC LUXEMBOURG - UK Branch, No 29-30 Cornhill, London, EC3V 3NF - Tel.: (+44) 0207 360 6100 **SRRI from the KIID: scale from 1 (lowest risk) to 7 (highest risk); category-1 risk does not mean a risk-free investment.

This indicator may change over time. *Source: Carmignac Gestion. Performance from 31-08-1990 au 31-08-2015. Carmignac Patrimoine is a French mutual Fund managed by Carmignac Gestion (AMF agreement n° GP 97-08). Date of 1st NAV: 07-11-1989. The recommended investment horizon is over 3 years. Fees are included in performance. Access to the Fund may be subject to restrictions with regard to certain persons or countries. The Fund may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, for the benefit or on behalf of a “U.S. person”, according to the definition of the US Regulation S and/or FATCA. The risks and fees are described in the KIID (Key Investor Information Document). The Fund’s prospectus, KIIDs and annual reports are available at www.carmignac.co.uk, or upon request to the Management Company. The KIID must be made available to the subscriber prior to subscription.

2343 Carmignac_Retire_Golf_Hurlingham_UK_285x210_v1.indd 1

05/10/2015 11:04