Heritage

The British royal family is the world’s oldest polo dynasty, dating back to the reign of Queen Victoria. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the most famous trophy of the Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA), the sport’s governing body in the UK, has royal origins.

The King’s Coronation Cup, celebrating its centenary this year, was first presented in 1911 on the occasion of the coronation of King George V. Now referred to simply as the Coronation Cup, the trophy is the top prize at the HPA’s International Day, the world’s biggest one-day polo event.

There is no evidence that Queen Victoria herself took any interest in polo, but her son the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, certainly did, although he was never a player. It was his royal patronage of the sport at London’s Hurlingham Club in the 1870s, after polo first reached the West from India, that helped establish the game in the pantheon of English horseback pursuits.

A famous painting by the English equestrian artist George Earl shows Edward, when he was Prince of Wales, watching a polo match with his wife Alexandra, the Princess of Wales, at Hurlingham in 1877. A contemporary etching depicts the couple with their two young sons,

Albert and George, as spectators watching two teams battle it out on horseback at a later match at the London club.

Edward, who also attended polo matches during his travels abroad – from Dublin to Deauville to Delhi – instilled in his two sons a keen interest in the sport. Subsequently, they became the first members of the royal family to take up the game. The brothers played together at Aldershot in 1885, but little is known of Albert’s polo after that. George’s diaries, however, are peppered with references to the sport at various stages of his life.

While serving with the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet aboard the battleships Dreadnought and Thunderer, George played at Gibraltar and Malta. In 1886 his Royal Navy team won the first ever Army-versus-Navy game on Malta. In 1890, after he had taken command of the first-class gunboat HMS Thrush, he again played in the Mediterranean. Then, when Thrush crossed the Atlantic for duty in the RN’s North America and West Indies Station, he competed in matches at Halifax, Nova Scotia, at Kingston, Jamaica, and Bridgetown, Barbados.

Having given up playing polo after he left active service in the navy in 1892, George nonetheless continued to take a keen interest in the sport, before and after he was crowned King of England. Either he or the Princess of Wales (who later became Queen Mary), presented trophies in England and also travelled to polo events abroad.

George became Prince of Wales after Queen Victoria died in 1901, and was made King upon the death of his father Edward VII in May 1910. The coronation of King George V and Queen Mary took place in June 1911.

Ranelagh, which was then London’s largest polo club, marked the royal occasion by inaugurating a new trophy, the King’s Coronation Cup, to be played for by the winners of the Hurlingham Champions Cup, the Ranelagh Open Championship and the Inter-Regimental Tournament, and ‘approved’ teams from elsewhere in the Empire. At the time, the huge and impressive trophy cost

£250 – which equated to around £14,265 in spending value at that time (today it is insured for around £75,000).

Only two teams competed for the new royal trophy that first year, two other intended contenders having run out of pony power early in the season. On 15 July 1911, the Indian Polo Association (IPA) and the 4th Dragoon Guards met on Ranelagh’s main ground beside the River Thames in Barnes.

Although the IPA team included several Indians, only one, the highly rated Shah Mirza Baig, played in the match. His teammates were all English military players of the British Raj: Captains Leslie St Clair Cheape, Vivian N Lockett and Ralph G Ritson. Keen to improve, within two years, they were all 10-goal players.

The Dragoons were seriously out-manned and out-horsed and, as clear underdogs, had the sympathy and support of the home crowd. Little good it did them, however. The sport’s leading periodical of the time, The Polo Monthly, reported that the IPA’s Baig and Cheape ‘were especially brilliant’ against the ‘plucky’ Dragoons. The IPA soundly defeated the Dragoons by 10-4 and were awarded the trophy by George V’s uncle, the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn.

After its inauguration in 1911 the King’s Coronation Cup was played for annually until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, except during the years of the Great War and one year of the Great Depression. The competition was high-goal, with teams handicapped at 30 goals or more including many of the most famous international players of that era.

The most successful team was El Gordo, a side made up of two Spanish aristocrats and the Argentine 10-goalers Lewis Lacey and Juan Traill. El Gordo won the trophy three years running. Philip Magor’s Panthers and the Freebooters, originally a John Watson team, both won the cup twice.

In 1933, a polo team from Rajasthan travelled to England and spent a triumphant season here. The Maharajah of Jaipur, ‘Jai’, was a 9-goaler and came with the legendary Rao Raja Hanut Singh of Jodhpur. They won every major tournament of the year, including the coveted Coronation Cup. The tournament continued each year until 1938, when it was

Above Cartier’s Arnaud Bamberger and Prince Charles present the cup to Adolfo Cambiaso, 2009 Right Luke Tomlinson lifts the trophy in 2010

awarded to Colonel Sir Harold Wernher’s Someries House.

The famous old Ranelagh club closed shortly before World War II and its King’s Coronation Cup passed to the HPA. After the war, competition for the Cup was revived first in 1951 in a three-game series between a Hurlingham team and an Argentine side, La Espadaña. Hurlingham won the first match at Cowdray Park Polo Club, then the decider at London’s Roehampton Club. George V’s granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth, presented the trophy at Roehampton.

In 1953, a month after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, five nations played for the Coronation Cup at Cowdray Park: England (two teams), Spain, the USA, Argentina and Chile. The final drew record crowds to Midhurst, West Sussex, as the Queen watched Argentina down England 7-6, after which she presented the cup.

The Coronation Cup again became a permanent fixture of the English polo season from 1971 when the HPA held its first International Day at Cowdray Park, an event originally conceived as an annual encounter between England and the USA in lieu of the Westchester Cup series between the two countries that had remained dormant since before the war. The USA defeated England to take the Coronation Cup that first year.

In 1972 the HPA moved its International Day to Guards Polo Club. It soon became traditional for Queen Elizabeth II to preside over the day, presenting the Coronation Cup and other prizes as she did in her own coronation year. On the rare occasions when she was not available, other members of the royal family took her place, including Diana, Princess of Wales, Prince Michael of Kent and, more recently, Prince Harry and Prince Charles. It has been the presence of royalty as well as world-class international competitions that have drawn upwards of 20,000 spectators, the largest crowds to watch polo anywhere in the world, to witness the exciting Coronation Cup matches.

From 1972 the USA defeated England three years running. In 1975, with America no longer being able to take up the Coronation Cup challenge, Hurlingham opened the event up to any national or multinational team who had a handicap comparable to that of the English team’s.

Composite South American teams beat England four years running, 1975-1978, and it was not until 1979 that the home team finally recorded their first victory to take the

Coronation Cup, defeating Mexico by 9-7.

In subsequent years England’s challengers for the Coronation Cup included national teams from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and France. Composite multinational teams challenging England included Rest of the World, Rest of the Commonwealth, South America, North America, and Australasia.

For years the stalwarts of the England side were the 9-goal brothers Julian and Howard Hipwood, both of whom served as captain. Their opponents have included many of the sport’s top international competitors, among them 10-goalers such as the Mexican brothers Memo and Carlos Gracida; Owen Rinehart and Mike Azzaro of the USA; Argentines Gonzalo Pieres, his son Facundo, Eduardo Heguy, and Adolfo Cambiaso.

The Coronation Cup was not played for in 1992 and 1997, when the revived Westchester Cup was the main trophy on International Day. Over the past 40 years, England has won 15 of their 38 Coronation Cup encounters. Last year the home team defeated New Zealand by 9-7.

After a succession of early corporate supporters, the international jewellers Cartier took over title sponsorship of the HPA’s big day, which for the past 28 years has been known as Cartier International Polo. It is one of the longest-running sponsorships in polo.

Regardless of whether it is England or the visitors who are the victors, year on year, the Coronation Cup encounters have become of major importance to the HPA and to polo in the UK and Ireland beyond their significance as international sporting competitions. With lucrative corporate sponsorships and massive ticket sales, the association’s profits from its International Day are substantial and contribute to funding development of polo throughout the British Isles.

The King’s Coronation Cup now occupies a place of honour on the first-floor landing of the Cavalry and Guards Club on Piccadilly, London, where the HPA holds its most important meetings. The 100-year-old trophy will be brought out again to be presented to the winners of the main high-goal match at the HPA’s Cartier International Day this year, at Guards Polo Club on 24 July.

England will again be facing Brazil in the two countries’ third encounter on International Day. Having defeated Brazil in 1996 and 2001, the home team will be looking to keep the Coronation Cup again in the venerable trophy’s centenary year.