Polo Olé

Sotogrande on Spain’s Costa del Sol has long been continental Europe’s favourite polo destination. Now the Santa Maria club is bidding to stage international events and its status is rising, says Herbert Spencer

It must be the world’s strangest traffi c intersection. Heading from Gibraltar towards Spain, your car is stopped at a red light when suddenly a huge passenger jet roars across your path. en the traffi c light turns green and you drive off , believe it or not, on a road that bisects the airport runway where the jet touched down a minute or so earlier. ere can be few more dramatic arrival points anywhere than Gibraltar International Airport. From the air, you see the coast of Morocco eight miles across the straits that divide Europe from Africa and the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean. To the north, there are the coasts and mountains of Spain’s Andalusia. As you land, the sheer face of the massive, 1,400-foot-high Rock of Gibraltar towers above you. e airport runway in the shadow of the Rock was once the site of the now-extinct Gibraltar Polo Club. Britain’s future King George V played polo at Gibraltar in the 1880s while serving as a young Royal Navy offi cer with the Mediterranean Fleet, and the club was popular with Englishmen between the wars.

Sotogrande is only 15 minutes away, a

Grooms and ponies at Santa Maria Polo Club

Below: Santa Maria’s main grounds straddle the Rio Guardiaro at Sotogrande

sprawling, 5,000-acre seaside resort that boasts multi-million pound villas, a marina crammed with luxury yachts, four golf courses – and Santa Maria Polo Club with its 11 grounds and year-round tournaments.

I visited Andalusia this spring to attend a meeting of the Federation of International Polo (FIP), watch the federation’s 52nd Ambassadors Cup tournament, and hear about Santa Maria’s ambitious, £114.7 million expansion plans on which the club is basing its bid to host FIP championships in the future. e club and the Royal Spanish Polo Federation were our hosts and their hospitality was typically Spanish, with every minute of every day fi lled with polo, parties and sightseeing.

On my fi rst evening, before the polo began, I dined with FIP’s president, Californian

Left: Alvarito Domecq of bullfighting and ‘dancing horses’ fame with admirers at a FIP party; the late Enrique Zobel (right), Godfather of Sotogrande polo.

Glen Holden, his wife Gloria, and a party of friends that included Spain’s ambassador to France, José Maria Ullrich y Rojas. José Maria and his French-born wife live in Sotogrande when not in Paris and it was he who encouraged FIP to come to Andalusia. ‘Sotogrande itself is a real paradise,’ the ambassador said, ‘and there is so much to see and do in this region of Spain: Jerez, Ronda, the ferias, fl amenco, horses, fi ghting bulls – and, of course, our polo.’

Some 40 years ago, only cork oak forests and small farms occupied the land at the mouth of the Rio Guadiaro on the Costa del Sol. In 1962, the giant Ayala Corporation in the Philippines began buying up the farms, one of which was named Sotogrande, and nearby land in the foothills of the Sierra Almenara. Its goal was to create, from scratch, an upscale residential resort, quieter and more exclusive than some of its Costa neighbours. Ayala’s grand plan, in staged development, was for wide, tree-lined streets with large plots for luxury villas and a range of leisure facilities for their occupants, all within a gated and guarded community.

Robert Tyre Jones was brought in to design the fi rst golf course near the sea and the Royal Sotogrande Golf Club opened in 1964. Soon big villas began springing up in this area of the

resort known as Sotogrande Costa. Over the years, the resort spread into the hills with the building of new golf clubs in the Sotogrande Alto area: Valderrama (Spain’s No.1 course and home of the Ryder Cup), Almenara and, just recently, La Reserva.

Down on the coast, the developers built Puerto Santa Maria with its quayside bars, restaurants and condominiums and a marina with some 800 berths for millionaires’ big motor yachts and sailing craft. Sotogrande is now a major venue for south of Spain regattas.

Billionaire Filipino player Enrique Zobel, CEO of Ayala, was the driving force behind the development of polo at the resort. ‘It’s thanks to Enrique’s vision,’ said Nicholàs Alvarez, president of the Spanish polo federation, ‘that Spain now has one of the world’s most famous polo venues here at Sotogrande.’ e resort’s fi rst polo ground in 1965, right on the shores of the Mediterranean, had a dramatic backdrop of the Rock of Gibraltar and the coast of North Africa in the distance. Wealthy patrons from Europe and America and top international professionals came to play up to 28-goal polo. Well-known Englishmen were involved in running the game here in those early days: Claude Pert, long-serving polo manager of Guards Polo Club, and Jack Williams, who also served at Cirencester Park and the Brunei and Santa Barbara, California, clubs.

After a violent storm swept the beach ground away, polo moved inland, fi rst to Paniaqua and then to the banks of the Rio Guadiaro. Today Santa Maria Polo Club has two grounds at Rio, four brand new ones at Los Piños just across the river, and fi ve up in the foothills. e FIP Ambassadors Cup matches were played at the Rio grounds. ere is polo year-round at Santa Maria, at all levels of the game. is year the 12 teams signed up for the 20-goal Gold Cup in late summer included those of high goal patrons who competed in the British Open or US Open this year. Amongst them were England’s Roger Carlsson, Venezuela’s Victor Vargas, and Italy’s Alfi o Marchini.

Santa Maria’s multi-million pound expansion plan, a long-term project, involves building two new clubhouses, residences, hotel, and commercial centre at its Los Piños grounds, which will become the club’s main facility. ‘We expect all the fi nal planning permissions and funding to be in place by the end of this summer,’ said Luis Estrada, the club’s chief operating offi cer.

Sadly, the ‘Godfather’ of Sotogrande polo won’t be around to see the massive new development. Enrique Zobel was still playing here, aged 64, when in 1991 a polo accident left him a quadriplegic. He continued to support the sport from his wheelchair, until he died last May, aged 77. In the Philippines, tributes to this tycoon philanthropist and maverick of his country’s business and political aff airs poured in from all quarters, including President Gloria MacapagalArroyo. And at Sotogrande last August, Santa Maria honoured Enrique by inaugurating the Founder Enrique Zobel Memorial Cup, with his granddaughter, Paula, presenting the prizes.

Before leaving Sotogrande, I dropped in for a farewell drink with James Gaggero, chairman of GB Airways. James, who is a polo player and lent ponies for the FIP tournament at Santa Maria, was the fi rst to build in the quiet and exclusive enclave of Sotogrande Alto, in 1985, and he is a passionate advocate of tourism in Andalusia. He summed up what Sotogrande is all about.

‘ e men from Ayala who fi rst conceived Sotogrande 40 years ago were consummate visionaries,’ he said. ‘It was their pioneering spirit, meticulous planning and early work that enabled a very underdeveloped part of Andalusia to become, over the years, one of the world’s greatest resorts. e place is booming and there is still room for much growth, but the nice thing is that the older residents are still a very close-knit community.

‘As for the polo here,’ said James, ‘Santa Maria’s expansion plans are indeed impressive, and the club deserves to be awarded a major international federation event in the future. And it’s very gratifying to see so many young members of our families, as young as eight or nine, taking up the sport. ese youngsters – perhaps there is even a budding 10-goal player amongst them – are the new generation that will ensure a great future for polo at Sotogrande.’ ■

Action in FIP’s 52nd Ambassadors Cup tournament at Sotogrande. Below right: FIP group treated to a show of horses and bulls at Alvarito Domecq’s fi nca near Jerez de la Frontera

GB Airways operates 11 fl ights a day from London and Manchester to Gibraltar and Malaga. (0870 850 9850 www.gbairways.com). Avis Gibraltar can be reached on 0870 6060100 www.avisworld.com. Rooms at the San Roque Club start from 145 Euros (00 34 956 613030 www.sanroqueclub. com). For information about polo at Sotogrande, Santa Maria Polo Club call 00 34 956 610012 or visit www.santamariapoloclub.com

The four-star San Roque Club is where the FIP offi cials and ambassadors were lodging. The club property was once a holiday home of the FIP President Glen Domecqs, the Holden, right, and sherry and polo Patrick dynasty, and Guerrand-Hermès Seve Ballestero has a golf school there, run by his brother Vincente.

But there was little time for the golfers amongst FIP visitors to enjoy San Roque’s championship 18-hole course. When they were not out at polo, the federation’s key offi cials were closeted in meetings, working on a major rewrite of federation’s bylaws and preparing for its Council of Administration meeting at the end of their stay in Andalusia.

At the Council meeting itself, Mexico made a successful bid to hold the VIIIth FIP World Championship there in 2007 (in June the country was confi rmed as the World Cup venue). FIP founder Marcus Uranga announced plans for the federation’s fi rst high-goal tournament next year in Buenos Aires, with England, USA, Brazil, Argentina and perhaps other countries competing at up to 30-goal level. Chinese-born Californian Wesley Ru reported on meetings he had in China on developing the sport for that country’s growing and affl uent business elite and Australia’s Peter Prendiville told of potential new FIP ties with polo in the United Arab Emirates.

The most surprising moment for observers at the meeting came when FIP President Glen Holden announced that he would be stepping down this year. As the summer progressed, the only candidate for the top job was Patrick GuerrandHermès, the Frenchman who organised FIP’s highly successful World Cup at Chantilly last year.

If Guerrand-Hermès is elected president at the General Assembly meeting in Buenos Aires in November, the federation’s headquarters will move from California to France, appropriate in that Europe has more polo-playing countries, clubs and players than any other continent within the FIP family.