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hurlingham polo association magazine
WINTER 2007
polo association magazine
Q3 WINTER 2007
ISLAND OF EXCELLENCE [Brioni’s polo tradition] CHUKKAS FOR CHARITY [inside the fundraising circuit] ENGLAND EXPECTS [investing in the national side] LIVING THE DREAM [polo’s property boom]
Introducing:
F L O R I D A
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foreword By Roderick Vere Nicoll, Publisher
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I started Hurlingham because I wanted to share my passion and love for the game with other players and enthusiasts, and because I thought there was an opportunity to produce a publication about polo that could convey the spirit of this exciting adrenalin-fuelled sport. This issue reflects the polo community both on and off the field. Ponylines brings the latest news and tidbits. I especially liked George Knowles telling us how playing his ponies all year round keeps them playing for many seasons – every polo player’s dream! With the exception of Argentina, all polo associations struggle to produce high goal players. The HPA spends a lot of time and money on the England set-up but can only field a 26-goal team. Is there a better way? Herbert Spencer considers the situation. Another ambition of the polo world is to get the game on TV. We interview Steve Katz, who covers the game and put together the enclosed Jaeger-LeCoultre DVD of the English and European seasons. In features, we meet Police drummer Stewart Copeland, one of a number of rock stars with a polo connection. Meanwhile, as land values escalate, polo has become a big attraction in a number of new developments, and Contributing Editor Sarah Eakin explores this phenomenon. A couple of summers ago I emailed Tom Barrack and told him I was on my way to Sardinia with my family. I got a response back in 20 minutes, saying that although he was not going to be there and he couldn't offer me a string of ponies in Porto Cervo yet, I would be welcome to his 105 Mangusto for an afternoon of cruising. It didn’t take Tom long to realise his ambition for Sardinia, and the local polo scene is thriving. Meanwhile, back in the UK, over a million pounds is raised for charity through polo each year, yet nothing goes to helping the polo community look after its own. We ask whether we should follow racing’s example. In the Action section, we cover the high goal in England and Spain. The final of the Queen’s Cup was one of the best games of polo I have seen in along time. The Cartier International, polo’s biggest day, was played in memory of Gabriel Donoso, and he would have been proud of his country’s victory. In continental Europe there has been a huge increase in polo activity. We round up the main events of the summer in our European report. Publishing a magazine is the same as playing polo, in the sense that one can’t do it without the rest of the team. I would like to thank all the people who make Hurlingham come to life – especially the advertisers, whose support is invaluable. See you all at Palermo in December!
Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, no responsibility can be accepted for any errors or omissions. All the information contained in this publication is correct at the time of going to press. HURLINGHAM (ISSN 1750-0486) is published quarterly by Hurlingham Media, distributed in the USA by DSW, 75 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville PA 17318-0437. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Hurlingham, c/o PO Box 437, Emigsville PA 17318-0437. Hurlingham magazine is designed and produced on behalf of Hurlingham Media by Show Media Ltd. Hurlingham magazine is published on behalf of the Hurlingham Polo Association by Hurlingham Media. The products and services advertised are not necessarily endorsed by or connected with the publisher or the Hurlingham Polo Association. The editorial opinions expressed in this publication are those of individual authors and not necessarily those of the publisher or the Hurlingham Polo Association. Hurlingham magazine welcome feedback from readers: hurlinghammedia@hpa-polo.co.uk
contributors Juan Cruz Díaz is an Argentinian sports journalist who has worked in both print and broadcasting. He founded four polo magazines: Polo & Polistas, Polo Mundial, La Dorrego and Polo Brief. Juan worked with IMG, managing the Novillo Astradas brothers’ team La Aguada, and previously worked with La Dolfina and La Mariana. He reports from Europe in the Action section. Becky Simpson is special events manager for La Martina in the UK. She started her fashion and PR career as a manager for GAP, before working in academia at Cambridge University. She took up polo after taking a break from eventing and showjumping. She reports from Florence on page 62.
Emma Tucker is the Associate Features Editor at The Times and was formerly editor of the FT Weekend. ‘I’ve only ever been to one polo match, and that was in Bogota, when I lived in Colombia,’ she says. ‘I sat on a pony and it bolted!’ She writes about Tom Barrack’s Sardinian development on page 36.
Alec Whitby and Lucy Gale are directors of Centaur Photographic, whose pictures appear herein. Alec is an accomplished horseman and former Master Farrier who worked as duty farrier at Guards, where he began taking polo pictures – and met Lucy, who was the club’s Polo Secretary. Her background is in photography, broadcast journalism and studio makeup and she has a BA in Moving Image. HURLINGHAM MAGAZINE Publisher Roderick Vere Nicoll Editor Ed Barrett Deputy Editor Herbert Spencer Contributing Editor Sarah Eakin Sub Editor Ming Liu Hurlingham Media 47-49 Chelsea Manor St, London SW3 5RZ +44 (0) 207 870 3170 hurlingham@hpa-polo.co.uk www.hurlinghampolo.com SHOW MEDIA Editorial Managing Director Peter Howarth 1-2 Ravey Street, London EC2A 4QP + 44 (0) 203 222 0101 info@showmedia.net www.showmedia.net
034022-RingrPoloQeens ENG A4
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Loro Piana thanks its team for their victory in the legendary Queen’s Cup. Sunday 17th June 2007 - Guards Polo Club - Windsor Great Park (UK).
Victory in the prestigious high goal handicap tournament was ensured by beating Ellerston White 12 to 11 in the seventh chukka of the final. This exciting match was played in front of a crowd of over 10,000 spectators.
Thanks to: David Stirling Alfio Marchini (captain) Juan Martin Nero Martin Espain www.loropiana.com
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hurlingham [ contents]
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07
Ponylines
WINTER 2007
polo association magazine
16
Talk
Olga Berluti, Tiago Gallego, Blue Tuna, and the England international set-up
24
Interview
Stewart Copeland on his twin passions: drumming and polo
26 Real estate
BRAND OF BROTHERS [Brioni’s polo tradition] CHUKKAS FOR CHARITY [inside the fundraising circuit] ENGLAND EXPECTS [investing in the national side] LIVING THE DREAM [polo’s property boom]
On the cover: The Duke of Macklenburg, member of the Brioni Polo Club
It’s boom time for polo’s property developments
32
Cover story
Brioni and polo make a perfect match
36
Hot spot
Tom Barrack is bringing polo to the beautiful shores of Sardinia
38
Charity
DVD ACTION
More than a million pounds was raised this summer from polo events
43
Action
Reports and pictures from around the world, including the Queen’s Cup, Gold Cup, the Cartier International, Sotogrande, Deauville, Florence, and a European round-up
64
Archive
Tommy Hitchcock: war hero and polo legend
For live action from the season, see the enclosed DVD or visit our website to buy a fuller version of the game
COVER IMAGE COURTESY OF THE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE & CENTRE OF THE ITALIAN FEDERATION OF EQUESTRIAN SPORT THIS PAGE ALICE GIPPS
News from around the polo world, plus interviews and the Chief Executive’s column
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07 ponylines
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ponylines [news]New sponsors, equine flu, polo books and much more
ONE TO WATCH: BEST AMATEUR Prince Bahar, nephew of the ruling Sultan of Brunei, gave an impressive performance as a 2-goal amateur upon his return to high goal polo this summer at Santa Maria Polo Club in Sotogrande. He was riding and hitting well as his Ahmibah team – centred on 9-goaler Pablo MacDonough – won the 20-goal Pedro Domecq de la Riva Cup, subsidiary of the Gold Cup. Last year Bahar played only medium goal, winning as part of a team shared with Iñigo Zobel, son of Sotogrande’s founder. In 1997 Bahar’s Jeradong team took the 26-goal Enrique Zobel in Spain and the following year the 22-goal Prince of Wales Trophy in England. He started his European career in the 1990s when his father, Prince Jefri, hired nine high-goal Heguys to play and coach at Jefri’s Ahmibah Farm in Coworth Park. Now based at Zobel’s Ayala Polo Club outside Sotogrande, Bahar plans to play high goal there again in 2008.
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Chief executive
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Looking back over another English season that was blighted by bad weather and foot-and-mouth, I hope that everyone will agree that the polo managers and groundsmen deserve a very special vote of thanks for keeping the show on the road. In particular, in spite of torrential rain on the Friday, which brought much of the country to a halt, Cowdray managed to put everything in place for Gold Cup finals day on the Sunday and, after heavy rain the preceding week, investment in the grounds by Guards paid off handsomely for the Coronation Cup. After a drawn-out Gold Cup final, spirits were raised by an outstanding game between two all-English teams on the morning of Cartier International Day. In the afternoon, for the Coronation Cup, which was played in memory and recognition of Gabriel Donoso, England dominated the first half, then let Chile back into the game in the fourth and fifth chukkas when they conceded control to Jaime Huidobro. When Luke Tomlinson was denied what looked like a certain goal to equalise in the last seconds, it appeared that a Chile win was meant to be. In the two test matches England won the first against New Zealand but lost the second against South America who, having been swamped in the first half by some wonderful open polo from the England team, used everything available to them in the second half to slow down the game. During appalling weather in June, when the final of the Warwickshire had to be postponed, Beaufort and Longdole Polo Clubs between them hosted a very successful FIP Ambassadors Cup, some of which had to be played in the arena – a new experience for several of those taking part. We were delighted to welcome a young Chilean team to play after the Gold Cup final for the John Cowdray Trophy, as well as young teams from Nigeria and Dubai to play on what has become a very successful SUPA Festival Day at Cirencester. Congratulations are due to all the winning teams but the 22 goal Loro Piana, lead by Alfio Marchini, deserve a mention not just as winners of the Queen’s Cup and finalists of the Gold Cup, but also for their style of polo. They, along with Ellerston, who had a great match against the Black Bears in the semi finals of the Queen’s Cup, were a joy to watch with their open passing polo. In the Victor Ludorum, there seems to be an increasing interest in the 18 goal, and Longdole are to be congratulated as the comfortable winners. In the other levels, entries were strong for all the tournaments and again congratulations are due to Wildmoor, winners of both the 15 and 12 goal, and Vampire Bats, winners of the 8 goal. Many of the old criticisms remain: the umpiring, bad language, appealing, tapping, lack of English players in the 22 goal, handicapping. In many cases the criticisms are levied with some justification; but producing a solution, let alone agreeing one, is not easy. Nevertheless, whilst many players abandon what we are told is going to be a cold English winter to play in sunnier climes, the various committees and Stewards of the HPA will continue to try to find solutions to the various issues so that polo in England can continue to attract new players and be enjoyed by those play it.
WYOMING Teenagers from the Big Horn Polo Club in Wyoming got the chance to play with top professionals at Skey Johnston’s nearby Flying H Polo Club. This was the second year of the Archie MacCarty Memorial tournament at the Flying H. The tournament, which Skey hosts specifically to give youngsters the chance to play with pros, is named after the late Archie MacCarty, once manager of the Johnston ranch. Three of Archie’s grandsons – Will, Ty and Ford – were among the six Big Horn players aged 16 to 19. They played with pros who included 10-goaler Miguel Novillo Astrada, Mariano Gonzales Owen Rinehart and Tiger Kneece. This year the Archie MacCarty was supported by the North American Polo League (NAPL), which is committed to developing young talent in the US. The NAPL was formed early this year by the late Skeeter Johnston, Skey’s son, and John Goodman who has also been playing at the Flying H. The Johnston club is one of the NAPL’s venues for its series of events across the country. HS
HABIB HERITAGE The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Polo Club (RMASPC) celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Indian Mutiny in August with its second annual Heritage Day, sponsored by Habib Allied International Bank UK. This year’s event featured a match between British military players and a team of retired cavalry officers from Pakistan, put together by Colonel Talha Saeed of the High Commission for Pakistan in London; the three other players flew in from Pakistan especially for the occasion. Major Mark Cann, director of the Combined Services Polo Association, led the British team. The day also included a ladies’ match between a team of English players and a Brazilian side. Sidelights included a re-enactment of the Delhi mutiny and demonstrations of tent pegging and ladies’ side-saddle riding. Heritage Day is the brainchild of the club’s Swiss polo manager Barbara Zingg, designed to emphasise the history of polo at the academy, where the likes of Winston Churchill learned the game in the 19th century. ‘Next year,’ said Zing, ‘we hope to stage a costumed reenactment of polo as it was played at Sandhurst and by British troops in India 122 years ago.’ RMASPC playing membership consists exclusively of academy cadets. HS
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hurlingham [ ponylines] CHUKKAS Only three of the 71 ponies on call for this year’s Queen’s Cup final at Guards Polo Club were English in origin. The winners, Loro Piana, had one from patron Alfio Marchini. The team had three Australian mounts and one each from Spain and South Africa. The remaining 29 were all from Argentina. The other finalist, Ellerston, had only two English ponies, from Richard Le Poer. This team had three Argentinian mounts and two from New Zealand. The other 29 were from Australia, where James Packer has one of the world’s greatest pony breeding operations at Ellerston in Queensland.
This summer’s Audi British Ladies Polo Tournament saw Cadenza triumph over Audi, winners for the past two years. The match was played before the England v South America test at Cowdray Park Polo Club.
John Goodman’s International Polo Club Palm Beach has a new President of Club Operations, John Wash, replacing Michael Brown. Wash comes from a country club management background in New York and Texas.
The US Polo Association (USPA) will move into new offices at America’s Polo Museum and Hall of Fame in Lake Worth, Florida, in the New Year. After September’s groundbreaking ceremonies for an extension to the museum, construction is due to be finished by the end of this year. The Florida HQ is in addition to the association’s existing offices in Lexington, Kentucky, with USPA executive director Peter Rizzo commuting between the two.
The Pacific Coast Open at Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club was the most dramatic of all of America’s 20-goal tournaments this summer and produced a final that Lyndon Lea, English patron of winners Zacara, called ‘the best game I’ve ever played in anywhere, fast open polo’. Earlier in the tournament, Memo Gracida, key player for California patron Tom Barrack’s Piocho side, was injured and sidelined in a pile-up with his team-mate Kris Kampsen. ‘Memo was coming at me from behind and his pony’s front legs tangled with my pony’s rear legs,’ said Lea. ‘Kris was coming from behind full speed and he and his pony crashed down onto Memo, a quite spectacular pile-up.’ Barrack was also injured, breaking a finger on his stick hand, but bravely went into the final against Zacara playing with a brace on his hand. Then, with only two-and-a-half minutes to go in the final, Lea was injured. ‘The run-off behind goal at the condos end of the ground is short,’ he said. ‘I crossed the backline at full gallop and somehow managed to turn my pony 90 degrees to avoid going up the hill, but came off.’ The game was stopped for 25 minutes while Lea recovered to play on. Zacara beat Piocho 14-10 to take the trophy. Later it was found that Lea had cracked a vertebra in his fall. The story doesn’t end there, however. ‘Tom Barrack was due to play in Sardinia after California, but had to have an operation on his hand,’ Lea said, ‘so he asked me to substitute for him on his Cala di Volpe team with Memo. We reached the finals but lost.’ HS Pictured above, from left: Ruki Baillieu Australian, Brandon Philips, Canadian, Michelle Butler of Tiffany, Nick Roldan USA and former FIP president Glen Holden.
THE LOVE OF MY LIFE… The Capitol Polo Club in Maryland teamed up with Equestrian Partners in Conservation this summer to stage its first Washington Green Cup, highlighting environmental issues in Montgomery County where there are more than 230 horse farms and almost 200 more producing feed for its equine population.
Polo-playing rock drummer Ginger Baker, late of Cream, reports his new grounds up and running in South Africa. Ginger plans to host a polo and jazz event on 3 November for the benefit of the Beautiful Gate Ministry that cares for Aids affected and infected children.
The foot-and-mouth outbreak, in addition to causing widespread problems for the farming community, had a knock-on effect on polo, resulting in the cancellation of the final weekend’s play at the Guards Polo Club to the disappointment of all concerned.
Pony’s name Age Sex Colour Height Origin
Rovista 28 Mare Chesnut 15.3hh Argentina
George Knowles, 65, is the polo-playing coowner of Baileys Horse Feeds, a 25-year-old family firm supplying scientifically formulated feeds for polo ponies and other sporting horses. ‘The Argentinian high-goal player, Juni Crotto, originally brought “Visty” to the UK and eventually sold her to a local farmer who in the winter hunted her with the Beaufort and in the summer played polo. After a couple of seasons though, he gave up and I bought her in 1992. I hadn’t played polo for 12 years so needed an experienced pony to get me back into the game. Visty was perfect. She’s a bit bigger than the average pony, which suited me as I’m
quite tall, and, although not the fastest pony alive, she has great stamina and loves to play. I play arena polo in the winter so my ponies are kept fit and well all-year-round and not just chucked out in the winter. I’m convinced this is why Visty, and many of the other ponies I’ve had, continue to play into their twenties. Visty is still looking well and, although a little arthritic now, is keeping active teaching a 13-year-old boy the ropes and will continue to do so as long as she’s happy to.’
KIM KUMPART
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PACIFIC COAST OPEN
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HOOKED ON POLO English ex-pat Arthur Fitzwilliam has lived and worked in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for 20 years. Previously a financial consultant, he is now CEO of Plantation Holdings, developers of a luxurious new polo, equestrian and residential resort rising out of the desert.
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‘Most polo players learn the game on grass, but I got my start on desert sand, at the old Dubai Polo Club about 16 years ago. I was hooked from the start and remain so. Polo is such a complex game. You are always trying to learn more in horsemanship, stick work, tactics, always trying to master it. Early on I took lessons with Rege Ludwig in Virginia – on grass. Since then I’ve played in France, Italy, Cyprus, Malta, India and a bit in England where I have a house. ‘Home base for my polo is our Plantation development 15 minutes from the centre of Dubai city. It’s a long-term, $1.8 billion project centred on horse pursuits: all the equestrian disciplines, pleasure riding and, of course, polo. We’ve already started playing on the first of five grass grounds, four times a week, in the season that runs from October to April. I’ve brought in John Fisher from England as our polo manager and our first 50 ponies, from Argentina. Temporary air-conditioned stables and clubhouse are also in place. ‘Stage one of the Plantation development is almost complete – infrastructure such as roads and utilities – but we’re looking at a time-line of around two years for all the facilities: clubhouses, stables, polo, show jumping and dressage arenas, cross-country courses, residences. In short, everything a horseman or horsewoman could ask for. Plantation will have a luxury hotel and around a hundred, multimillion-dollar mansions all individually designed to give the feel of the deep south. We’re aiming for Plantation to be the best international equestrian resort in the world – and the best place to live in Dubai.’
For more information on hurlingham magazine, visit www.hurlinghammedia.com
New Sponsors In Argentina, watchmakers Jaeger-LeCoultre are sponsoring 10-goaler Adolfo Cambiaso’s La Dolfina team in the country’s Triple Crown series of tournaments, the Tortugas, Hurlingham, and Argentine Opens. La Dolfina are reigning champions in the latter two. The Heguy-based Indios Chapaleufu II team in the Triple Crown is sponsored by the new polo and residential resort development Culu Culu. The Park Hyatt Buenos Aires has put its name to the Alegria team that are trying to qualify for a place in the Triple Crown. Alegria is the only team with non-Argentinian players in its line-up: England’s Luke Tomlinson, Canada’s Fred Mannix and Australia’s Jack Baillieu. Ralph Lauren’s Black Watch sponsored the Black Watch team that played at Bridgehampton and was also scheduled to play in the cancelled Jockey Club Open in Buenos Aires. The team included Ignacio Figueras who also models for the fashion giant. In the USA, Creed was one of the event sponsors in the Veuve Clicquot Cup at Greenwich Polo Club in September – the first time the 247-year-old fragrance firm had undertaken sponsorship. HS
AUSTRALIAN EPIDEMIC Inter-club polo in the Australian states of New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland has been cancelled for the duration of the country’s first-ever epidemic of equine flu. Until now Australia has been one of the few countries in the world that has been free of the disease. Since the highly contagious virus was first detected in August, thought to have been brought in by a horse from the Northern Hemisphere, quarantines and restrictions on movement of horses has forced cancellation of many horse sports events. Racing, a multibillion dollar industry in Australia, has been badly hit. Overall more than 1,300 establishments with over 11,000 horses are involved. The epidemic struck in the Australian spring breeding season. While equine flu usually only puts sports horses out of competition for several weeks, it can provoke potentially fatal complications in foals. The Australian government has imported tens of thousands of vaccine doses to start an inoculation programme in an effort to halt the epidemic before it spreads to other states. It appears that in the future, horsemen in Australia, like others elsewhere in the world, will have to make equine flu vaccination a standard veterinary procedure. HS
PATRICIO MUJICA BRIEBA It is with great sadness that we learned of the tragic death of FIP Ambassador Patricio Mujica Brieba at his farm in Tecamac Mexico at the end of August. Son of Don Dario Mujica and Maria Brieba, he was born in Santiago, Chile in 1931. A consumate sportsman, Patricio loved to compete on the polo field, at the bridge table, on the tennis court and even occasionally on the golf course, where he found it a challenge to beat his lovely wife, Azita. As a great raconteur and a known bon vivant, Patricio loved a good cigar and a good story – dinners always went on late into the night. His great wit and charm are best demonstrated by one of his favourite stories. Having flown on Air France from New York to Paris – where he was meant to disembark – he managed to convince the pilot to let him stay onboard while the plane continued to Geneva in the name of true love. The beautiful, bemused woman seated next to him was destined to become his wife. He and Azita spent 24 wonderful years together. Patricio was a kind, generous sensitive man who was always delighted to help a friend. He was quick to feel others’ sadness and even quicker to share in their joy. As a polo player of the old school, he was known for his hospitality and generosity in lending horses to visiting players. He will be greatly missed by his many friends around the world. MELANIE VERE NICOLL
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NEW BOOKS Profiles in Polo: The Players Who Changed the Game edited by Horace A Laffaye (McFarland & Co). Over 30 of polo’s most influential players throughout history are profiled in this book, based on the players’ overall impact on the game rather than simply prowess on the field, although many covered are considered all-time greats. With contributions from many of the world’s leading polo journalists, each chapter covers an individual player, including early pioneers, those from the ‘golden era’ between World War I and World War II, superstars, game-changers and great contemporaries. Horace A Laffaye, a player himself, is on the board of directors of the Museum of Polo. Foreword by The Prince of Wales. Where the Rivers Run North by Sam Morton (Full Moon Press) is an historical novel that covers four eras in the history of Absaraka (now southern Montana and northern Wyoming) from the days when Native American tribes still dominated the landscape to the hardships of fledgling pioneer life to the era of fast-paced modern development. One thread runs throughout: the figure of the horse, whether running wild on the plains or competing on the racetrack. The book also contains connections with English noblemen and great horses with bloodlines from England and around the world. It reveals the unique historical impact of the Big Horn Polo Club by showing that over 118 years it has been a major hub for some of the sports major personalities. This is an epic story told with warmth and humour. It will appeal to – and inspire – anyone with an interest in history, horses and polo.
SHANGHAI TO SHOWCASE POLO The Nine Dragons Hill Polo Club near Shanghai will in October showcase the sport of polo in a glamorous, inaugural three-day event to ‘reflect the polo lifestyle’. The Royal Salute Polo Gold Cup is being supported by several senior FIP members including president Patrick Guerrand Hermes who is contributing his leading professional player, and Australia ambassador Peter Yunghanns and delegate Graham McGregor. Four teams of mostly international professionals will be flown in, with Malcolm Borwick, Alasdair Archibald, Andrew Hine and France’s best player Brieuc Rigaux all confirmed. It’s one of the first, international polo events in China, with all ponies provided by the club and the Duke of Argyll presenting the winning trophy at this UKthemed event. Live performances will entertain spectators between the matches, and the final day will culminate in a gala dinner designed to raise money to support students travelling to the UK to train in horse and stable management and equine veterinary, of which no schools yet exist in China. www.ndhpolo.com for more info. ML
POLOLINE
LA MAILLET D’OR India’s Royal Mewar team beat Singapore 83 in a five-chukka match to win Cartier’s prestigious La Maillet d’Or trophy. The match was held at the Singapore Polo Club in damp June conditions that were reminiscent of the English summer. Around 800 spectators attended, including local supporters, dignitaries, and guests. The Maharana of Udaipur, His Highness Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar, was guest of honour. A highlight was the fashion show sponsored by pologirlsclub.com, which specialises in polo-inspired fashion. Princess Bhargavi Kumari Mewar presented the Best Hat award to Mrs. Anju Bhojwani while Cartier’s Managing Director, Christopher Kilaniotis, presented the Best Dressed Gentleman award to Tan Puay Hiang. Winners for the Most Valuable Player and Best Polo Playing Pony also received prizes sponsored by La Martina and Cartier.
SADDLE UP WITH... JUAN MARTIN NERO Nationality: Argentine Age: 26 Handicap: 10 in US and England; 9 in Argentina Spectators and players love Juan Martin Nero’s style of polo: he uses his talent, his head and all his team members. This year, he went to 10 in America, then in England, where he led this season’s team sensation, Loro Piana. Nero grew up in the polo stronghold of Trenque Lauquen, 400 km from Buenos Aires. How did your career progress? I got a job with Talandracas, playing in Paris and Sotogrande. I went to England in 2003 with Talandracas, where Dubai knocked us out of the Gold Cup. Then I had my big break in 2004 when Marcos Heguy asked me to join Azzurra. We won the Gold Cup and my career took off because I was playing 22-goal instead of 14-goal. And more recently? I joined Loro Piana in 2006, with Milo Fernandez-Araujo. Milo and Marcos have been my greatest influences – I’ve picked so much up from them. Alfio Marchini has bought fantastic horses and we’re all great friends on the team. This year has been my best: reaching the final of the US Open and Gold Cup, winning the Queen’s Cup and Sotogrande Silver Cup – and getting to 10, which has always been my dream. When did you first play the Abierto? In 2004, I replaced Marcos Heguy in Chapa I after he hurt his arm. Chapa II beat us in the final. Since then I’ve played every year with Chapa I, who I grew up supporting. How do you rate yourself compared to Cambiaso? I can’t put myself in his league – he’s still the one to look up to. I’m four or five steps down. What’s your dream Argentine Open team? Actually, it’s the team I’ll play with in 2008 – Ellerstina – which will be Gonzalito and Facundo Pieres, Pablo MacDonough and me. Where do you like playing best? England. I love the country, but also the tough competition: there are so many wellorganised teams, with nearly all the world’s top players. Doing well is a challenge.
Jaeger-LeCoultre partner of
16-17 Woodd
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hurlingham [ talk ]
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England expects Two years ago the HPA launched a new look for the England team. Herbert Spencer considers the situation today
Above Audi UK’s Head of PR Jon Zammett at the start of the Cartier International 2007 with the English team: (from left) Nacho Gonzalez, Luke Tomlinson, Henry Brett and James Beim.
Three weeks before the start of the Europe zone play-offs for the FIP World Cup at Sotogrande earlier this year, the England national team and their entourage were already in Spain preparing for the competition. The four-man squad was there along with alternates, chef d’equipe, coach, some players’ partners for moral support and 30 ponies brought down from the UK. The group lived and worked together in a rented villa and practiced at a club near where the play-offs were scheduled. This was no different from the England football team arriving early at a foreign venue to acclimatise and train before a big match. It was an illustration of the big-sport professionalism that pervades the HPA’s current approach to international competitions, and England teams that play in them. No other polo association spends more time, effort and money on competitions between nations and on its national team than the HPA. Chief Executive David Woodd estimates that in 2007 the association will have spent £160,000 on internationals and the England teams. The whole of English polo benefits in terms of national pride, a higher profile for the sport and profits to fund the game at lower echelons. ‘Thanks to sponsorship,’ says Woodd, ‘none of the membership fees paid by our members goes into financing the England team and, overall, the internationals
generate profit that we can use on such things as our youth programmes.’ National teams from the British Isles have been playing in internationals since 1886 when the Americans donated the Westchester Cup as a perpetual trophy to be played for between the United States and Great Britain. Great Britain has not fared well in the series, having won only five of the 15 meetings with the United States. The HPA’s International Day (now Cartier International) began in 1971 and since then England teams have played visiting national sides or composite teams from more than a dozen countries for the Coronation Cup. As in the Westchester Cup, England’s win-loss record has not been good, with the home team winning only 13 of the 35 Coronation Cup one-day tests. England teams also compete in the FIP’s three-yearly World Championships. They have yet to win the gold, but did take silver in Berlin, 1989; Santa Barbara, 1998; and Chantilly, 2004. At Sotogrande earlier this year, England qualified for the 2008 World Cup scheduled for Mexico City next April. Over the past five years or so there has been a significant increase in the number of internationals played between two countries. England teams playing at home or abroad have met national sides of Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and India, mainly at a higher
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The HPA decided it needed to invest more in its teams, providing the kind of professional organisation that national teams in other sports have
1 Trainer Winston Squires works on Henry Brett’s arm 2 Andrew Tucker, the team’s first ever chef d’equipe 3 Coach Claire Tomlinson and FIP president Patrick GuerrandHermes at Sotogrande in April 2007 4 The HPA’s Chief Executive David Woodd with his ever-present binoculars following the play
handicap level (around 26 goals) than the pro-am tournaments in the UK. Countries playing in other internationals have included Brazil, Uruguay, Canada and Spain. Given England’s less than impressive record in the big internationals, the HPA decided in 2004 that it needed to invest more money in its teams, providing the kind of professional organisation that national teams in other sports have. One stimulus for this, according to Woodd, was the country’s euphoria over the England rugby team winning the World Cup for the first time the year before. The HPA started by hiring a chef d’equipe for the team, its first ever. Andrew Tucker, a salaried employee, albeit part-time, is more than just a ‘team manager’. ‘Tuck’ is also involved in such things as looking for sponsorship, liaising with sponsors and handling promotion and publicity for the team. He is part of a core management group together with Woodd and the HPA’s events co-ordinator Lucy Lewis and John Tinsley, HPA chairman until 2005 and now chairman of the association’s international committee. Funding for England teams had in the past been problematic, despite long-time financial support from the Pidgley family’s firms – first Berkeley Homes then Cadenza – who have sponsored England at the Cartier International. In 2005 Audi UK signed on as the main England sponsor for at-home internationals – a three-year contract
providing £100,000 annually to help finance the team. Cadenza has also continued its support and other sponsors now include Crew Clothing Co, Lutwyche Bespoke and Hayley Conference Centres. With solid funding in place, Tucker was able to bring in ancillary personnel like Bristol University sports psychologist Bob Reeves, who has held senior coaching positions in rugby and cricket, and Dave Alred, guru to rugby’s great Jonny Wilkinson, to serve as performance coaches for the England team. Trainer Winston Squires advises the team on fitness and diet. Fees are paid to head coach John Horswell and some coaches, like Claire Tomlinson and Will Lucas, volunteer their services. The team operates a squad system – with most English players handicapped at 5 goals or more – currently around 18 strong, signed up to play for their country when called upon. Lower-rated players, with handicaps from 2 to 4 goals, are also available for the 14goal FIP championships that have a 5-goal cap on competitors. The England players, all professionals or semi-pros, do not receive fees to play for their country, but all their expenses are covered and they are paid for providing the ponies they ride. The England selection committee is comprised of Tinsley, HPA vice-chairman Mark Vestey, and former England players Andrew Hine, Alan Kent, James Lucas, and after appointment, the England team captain. They decide team line-ups depending upon the handicap level of each international and what the opposition looks like. A team captain is chosen for each event: former captains have included Henry Brett, Luke Tomlinson, Malcolm Borwick, Oliver Hipwood and Tom Morley. In 2005, the first year of the ‘new look’ England, the teams won only two of their six encounters at home and abroad – no improvement in the win-loss records prior to re-organisation. The phrase ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ was heard. The following year the position was reversed, with England winning six of its eight internationals. In 2007 England has won two of its international encounters and lost two. However professional an organisation the England teams have behind them, in the end it is down to available talent. Over the past three years Henry Brett has dropped from an 8 handicap to 6 and Nacho Gonzalez from 7 to 6. Luke Tomlinson has been stuck at 7, although his brother Mark, has gone up from 6 to 7. England can now only field a 26goal team. Argentina could put anything up to a 40-goal side into internationals and the USA up to 35, with countries like New Zealand, Australia and South Africa all improving. According to Woodd, the HPA is now looking to invest money to send some leading players to Argentina for winter training and to play at a higher level than they do in England, where the cap on pro-am
18 Tiago
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aiming high Polo enthusiast and club owner Tiago Gallego shares his plans for polo in Portugal 18 WORDS LUCY NORTHMORE
You don’t usually hear of people being introduced to polo by their wife and children, but then there is nothing usual about Dr Tiago Gallego and his ambitions. Having spent five years as Portugal’s national squash champion, as well as being a water skiing champion and enjoying considerable success in motorcross, Tiago Gallego is an all-round sportsman. So when Tiago’s wife and sons asked him to join in their polo practice it wasn’t long before the sport took hold. From that moment in 1999, Tiago has been busy breaking new ground and can now boast ownership of La Varzea Polo & Golf Resort, the only polo club in Portugal and the second largest in Southern Europe. He also has his own team, La Varzea, which has already won the first Portugal Open. Not content with just playing polo, Tiago is also committed to developing the sport in the country. As a chartered accountant, Tiago has held a number of
Portugal’s polo family: (from left) Diogo Gallego, Kika Gallego, Tiago Gallego and Tiago (Junior) Gallego.
senior executive positions in international banking and finance and also has business interests in the real estate sector. This combination of business talent and a passion for polo has led to exciting new developments in the polo world. ‘I am a born entrepreneur and therefore I have the courage to break new ground in my own business ventures and what I have in mind for polo,’ he says. ‘I intend to build something very special for polo in Europe.’ Tiago’s immediate priority is to ensure that polo remains established in Portugal, with the challenge of creating Europe’s premier polo and equestrian destination. He became the sole owner of La Varzea Polo & Golf Resort in December 2006, whereupon he laid out the road map for exciting developments over the next five to eight years. Not content with creating Europe’s premier polo destination, Tiago has introduced new concepts into polo, like the introduction of prize money (the first Portugal Polo Open attracted a total of 75,000 in prize money). Tiago also wants more people to take up the sport, making it more competitive and rewarding for players and patrons. The club is based within Herdade do Zambujeiro, a partly-developed residential and country estate covering 1,000 hectares. Located less than 30 miles from Lisbon International Airport, the club operates allyear-round and provides complete facility hire. It caters for all polo players from beginners to professionals, and currently provides three polo grounds and stabling for 300 horses, in addition to numerous clubhouse facilities. On completion, La Varzea will offer nine polo grounds and 1,500 loose boxes. A golf academy, tennis courts, squash courts and an 800-person capacity conference centre
and commercial centre are also being built. Forthcoming developments include a boutique hotel, a resort hotel, one and two-bedroom sporting lodges, luxury villas, townhouses, apartments and residential units. Based in natural parkland, La Varzea is less than a three-hour flight from any UK airport. It’s perfect for those with a passion for polo, golf, field sports and every conceivable equestrian discipline – with the added bonus of 300 days of sunshine a year. Tiago has also introduced shared freehold memberships (fractional ownerships) into the polo market, a comparatively new concept to the UK. Finance for the purchase of shares is available for UK residents, and members also get three months’ use each year on a rotational basis as well as valuable income when not using the polo lodge. Buyers can also increase, decrease, exchange or sell their level of investment. This opportunity has been created for genuine users who intend to participate in the club’s sporting activities, ensuring a year-round thriving resort. The option for outright freehold purchase is also offered as are plots for bespoke residential projects. Tiago has also started developments in Argentina and is looking to expand into other countries, which may include Brazil, Uruguay and Chile. Tiago is a man on a mission, to turn polo into a mass spectator sport in Portugal. ‘There is an old Chinese proverb,’ he reflects. ‘“Never place the last tile on your roof.” I look forward to achieving more than I have already achieved for polo, and trust that I have yet to accomplish my greatest achievement.’ www.lavarzeapolo.com
POLOLINE
hurlingham [ talk ]
BRIGADOON IS ABOUT TWO THINGS: The love of HORSES and the SPACE to enjoy them.
1700 ACRES
of community space 500 ACRES
of green space
P OLO
40 ACRES
of common space 2 POLO FIELDS
A POLO PARADISE
Aiken, SC is well known for sandy and level ground, perfect for polo. A 180' by 310' covered arena (large enough for indoor polo), ample turnouts and two competition polo fields make this an exceptional equestrian community. TIGER KNEECE, Brigadoon Club Professional
PHASE 1: 43 TRACTS STARTING AT $17.5/ACRE
(7.5 to 18 acre tracts)
Contact MIKE HOSANG at The Carolina Real Estate Company 803-270 -6358 or call toll free 877-PLA-POLO (877-752-7656)
WWW.BRIGADOONSC.COM 1703CR-1704aPL The information in this advertisement was prepared for Aiken Land and Timber LLC as a graphic illustration and aid to location. All property lines, lot dimensions, descriptions, common areas and amenities are approximate and conceptual. The development has not been submitted for required governmental approvals. The development plan is subject to change and is not a commitment of the Company to conform to the information or drawings herein. Persons desiring information should contact the Company’s marketing representatives.
20-21 Berluti
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hurlingham [ talk ]
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bet your boots Whether you’re seeking ready-to-wear or bespoke, boots by Parisbased Berluti are made to last, says Edwina Ings-Chambers
Five thousand pounds may seem a lot to pay for a pair of polo boots, but that’s what Prince Albert Esiri paid for the handcrafted pair he bought from Olga Berluti. He considers it money well spent. ‘My Berluti polo boots – the first ones made by Madam Berluti – are stylish, hard-wearing and comfortable,’ he enthuses about a pair that today would cost closer to £7,000. ‘Every care has been taken in its crafting – from the selection of the leather used to the cut, make up and fit, which after two years in the making has resulted in a pair of polo boots like no other and certainly the best that I have ever owned. Madam Berluti quite simply has made me the perfect boots for a demanding sport.’ Polo boots are made from vitello, known for its durability. Making a boot takes around a year and involves as many fittings as the master bootmaker deems necessary. The atelier is in Paris but the master bootmaker visits London, the USA, Russia, Japan and Italy as much as once a month to meet with clients. On the
first appointment the master bootmaker takes 10 to 15 measurements and discusses the design. He then returns to the atelier for the carving of the ‘last’ – the wooden replica of the foot. A prototype shoe is made and then the first fitting takes place where the master bootmaker cuts the shoe apart to measure the insides against the foot. The prototype is then returned to the atelier where the shoe is finally made followed by the final fitting. The process involves 250 operations in all – or as Olga Berluti puts it, ‘as many as for building a cathedral’.
‘The greatest tragedy that can happen to one of my shoes is to be left in a cupboard. I thank God when I see that the shoes have been used to the line’
This particular cathedral-builder has been working for nearly half a century, having left Italy in 1959 and gone to work for her brother’s Paris-based bootmaker. Back then, few could have predicted the results. When asked about her work, Olga Berluti is prone to such answers as: ‘Berluti is not a style; it’s a state of being.’ Of her exceptional wares, she once said: ‘The greatest tragedy that can happen to one of my shoes is to be left in a cupboard. I thank God when I see that the shoes have been used to the line. The cow didn’t die for nothing and a worker didn’t sweat for nothing. The shoes are made to last.’ Berluti’s success in ushering her brand into the higher echelons of luxury shouldn’t be surprising. Right from the start, she had to be extra-determined to pursue her craft of choice. Despite having learned shoe-making by the side of her cousin, she was not allowed to exercise her craft because making shoes was ‘no job for a woman’. So Berluti made her own way to her destination, concentrating on leather techniques and understanding and serving her customers.
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The company created the Swann Club where specially invited guests can polish their Berlutis with champagne
1 The Berluti team: (from left) Tom Flexner, Oakleigh Thorne, Donatien Langlois, Julio Ezcurra, Parker Thorne, John Klopp and Patrick Atamani at New York’s Mashomack Polo Club in July 2007 2 Olga Berluti says her brand is not a style but a state of being 3 Berluti’s London store 4 Prince Albert Esiri gets fitted for his handmade boots in the London store
2
This approach has helped make the name Berluti synonymous with fancy footwear for men, and driven developments such as the now signature Venezia leather, which is both supple and specially tanned to create transparent colours. ‘My passion is for my customers,’ Berluti says about her clients, who both inspire and push her into the creative process. ‘It may be a new customer that has just walked into the Maison Berluti or an old friend. My customers are always exceptional men, from sportsmen to artists to businessmen: a man from any field with personality. My life and work is a tribute to them.’ The company has even created the Swann Club, named after the Proustian hero for his elegance, romance and distance from the ordinary world. The Club holds annual dinners where specially invited guests can polish their Berlutis with champagne. Today, the brand’s ready-to-wear shoes are of course a large part of the business, but Berluti knows that a bespoke service is still vitally important. ‘Luxury is about being unique, about being comfortable,’ Berluti believes. ‘Our great ready-to-wear-range is very sophisticated and successfully completed. Everything is made by hand. Yet despite the wide variety of shapes and sizes, when we have a problem with sizes, tailormanufacturing is still a solution. When the client has a very specific and very sure taste, tailor-manufacturing is a luxury.’
Bespoke collections also provide her with most of her ready-to-wear inspiration: ‘Bespoke is the history of shoemaking and so the bespoke collection helps me to develop each collection.’ Her passion for treating cow skin in similar ways to human skin has resulted in a succession of ranges – including the Warrior line, which uses scarred cow leather and takes inspiration from the scars that mark the faces of tribal princes.
4
The inspiration behind the Warrior range was a touching and memorable experience for Berluti: ‘I met the request of a young wife of a great African leader who offered her husband a pair of warrior shoes with the birth of their first child,’ she remembers. ‘But she kept insisting that I made them the same colour as her husband’s skin.’ It took six people to make the shoes. Traditional craftsmanship is still at the heart of Berluti, with a bespoke workroom of ten souliers in Paris and a ready-to-wear workroom in Italy that employs around 60 skilled workers. Both bases still run on handheld tools. Bespoke orders take nine months to finish, with orders still recorded manually on paper (computers here are just for payment processing). Wooden lasts are carved for each bespoke customer, named, stored on shelves and re-used for any subsequent orders. When asked about women customers, Berluti responds: ‘Women equals fashion. Berluti is not a fashion brand. Men’s shoes are more timeless and male customers are more loyal! Berluti used to make shoes for women in the 1940s and their shoes were designed to last for a lifetime. Unfortunately the fashion era was erratic even then and the shoes little worn.’ And for Berluti, an unworn shoe would be simply unthinkable. Edwina Ings-Chambers is deputy fashion editor of the Financial Times
22 blue tuna
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hurlingham [ talk ]
Left Getting the big picture Above Steve Katz
close-up Blue Tuna’s Steve Katz shares his ambitions for broadcasting the game 22
INTERVIEWER ED BARRETT
What is Blue Tuna? The TV production company I set up with Jon Howarth. We work on documentaries, bigbudget commercials and corporate work. My broadcasting background is in massive projects like Premier League football, World Cups and Olympic Games. How did you get involved in polo? In the mid-90s I directed some polo coverage for the Sultan of Brunei, then I got involved in televising polo through my friend Kenney Jones – we did the Polo Masters at Hurtwood Park for Sky in 1999. The model has remained the same since then: the sponsor funds the programme, we make it and Sky broadcast it. Eurosport have also come on board. What’s your approach to filming polo? Polo is a very technical game and I took advice from Simon and Claire Tomlinson, Kenney Jones, Beaufort and the HPA. I direct it like football: big close-ups, quick replays, quick cutting, while trying not to lose the ‘geography’ of the game. And we are always trying to introduce improvements.
The major difficulty is the sun’s glare – and losing sight of the ball. It’s such a big pitch and such a small ball
A polo ground is different from a football stadium: there’s no gantry, for example... We put in camera and scaffold platforms, and cranes to get the angles and high points needed to tell the story. Our ‘camera one’ is on a 22-metre crane around the half-way mark at the side of the pitch. We also have cameras at each end – about 30 metres behind the goal for safety reasons. We use big lenses for close-ups, and super-motion replays. You get dramatic head-on shots of ride-offs and you can see the fouls and goals. Most importantly, our team of operators know polo and are used to filming it. The major difficulty is the sun’s glare – and losing sight of the ball. It’s such a big pitch and such a small ball. Camera one is your safety camera in this respect, because it
will always have the horse and ball in shot. You can cut-in the other cameras as and when required. But obviously there are no second chances. How do you rate polo as a TV sport? Polo is an exciting sport, and if it’s covered properly then it’s actually better on television than live. If you’re a spectator at one end, you can’t see the play up the other end. As a TV viewer, you’ve got the replays, the angles, the analysis. But polo is a hard sell for broadcasters. Its profile has risen, but unfortunately it’s seen as an elitist sport – and way down the broadcasters’ shopping list. Yet with the right sponsors and package, polo will eventually get a terrestrial broadcaster. Then you’re looking at blue chip sponsors who get value for money. Satellite coverage is of course very welcome, and Veuve Clicquot love it. They sponsored two programmes on this year’s Gold Cup, and between them they went out 15 or 16 times on Sky. What’s the future for televised polo? Polo will never be a mainstream sport but there is a market for it. My ambition is to get polo on terrestrial TV. Another ambition is live coverage, and there has been some interest from broadcasters. We’ve just done some coverage in Sotogrande. The Spanish scene is going to grow, and the plans at Santa Maria look phenomenal. I have a good relationship with the HPA and David Woodd and also the clubs. I’ve always tried to promote the sport. We’re doing some work with FIP televising the world championships – it’s being produced by Antoine Serval, editor of the International Polo Guide. If all goes well you could see some big things happening for the finals in Mexico. Watch this space...
THE 2008 POLO SEASON AT INTERNATIONAL POLO CLUB PALM BEACH FEATURING
THE
104TH STANFORD U.S. OPEN POLO CHAMPIONSHIPS™
2008 TOURNAMENT CALENDAR 20-GOAL TOURNAMENTS JOE BARRY MEMORIAL CUP JANUARY 13 - 27, 2008
26-GOAL TOURNAMENTS C. V. WHITNEY CUP FEBRUARY 24 - MARCH 02, 2008
YLVISAKER CUP
FEBRUARY 03 - FEBRUARY 17, 2008
GOLD CUP
MARCH 09 – MARCH 23, 2008
STANFORD U.S. OPEN POLO CHAMPIONSHIP™ MARCH 30 - APRIL 20, 2008
THE FUTURE IS NOW
IPC is an Official Site of the NAPL Championship Series
561-204-5687 for polo tournament entry information www.internationalpoloclub.com www.northamericanpololeague.com
Hurl_Aut07_IPCPB 1
10/10/07 17:33:03
24-25 First Person:Layout 1
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hurlingham [ interview ]
back on the beat
Stewart Copeland of The Police talks to Herbert Spencer about music and polo, the two enduring passions of his life ILLUSTRATION PHIL DISLEY
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Stewart Copeland, drummer, composer, filmmaker and erstwhile polo player, is at Sting’s Tuscan estate an hour from Florence, rehearsing for the reunion tour of The Police. Twenty-three years after the group split up, Copeland, Sting and Andy Summers are back together. Between pilates and ashtanga yoga sessions organised by Sting and virtually dawn-to-dusk rehearsing, Copeland takes time out to reminisce with me. ‘Some of your readers may not want to hear this,’ Copeland says, ‘but drumming is really more fun than polo, especially if you’re good at it. The two activities do have one big thing in common for me: that old adrenalin rush. In polo, it comes from chasing a ball around a beautiful grass ground with seven other equally mad riders. In drumming it’s chasing eighty thousand fans in a stadium with my music. ‘A big difference, of course, is in the economics: in drumming and composing it’s been money in, happily. In polo it was all cash out – horses are hungry beasts.’ Copeland’s background was a pretty unusual one for a rock star. His father, Miles Axe Copeland Jr, was a ‘spook’, although, says Copeland, ‘I never really realised this until I was in college.’ His father served with the American intelligence organisation Office of Strategic Services in London during World War II, where he met and married Copeland’s mother, who was in British intelligence. After the war, he was in on the founding of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Copeland was born not far from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in 1952 and was only a few months old when his father was posted to the Middle East – first Cairo, then Beirut, where Copeland spent his childhood. ‘I didn’t know it then,’ Copeland said, ‘but in those days my father was involved in some pretty high-powered covert operations in Middle East politics. I thought he was just an ordinary businessman and an accomplished trumpeter. In his earlier days, he had played with Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller bands. I still have his trumpet. So music was in my blood: big band jazz from
my father, classical music from my mother, who was and still is an archaeologist (his father died in 1991). I started drumming when I was 11 or 12, and formed my first group with some mates, playing at the British and American embassies’ beach clubs in Beirut.’ Then the family moved to England and Copeland went to boarding school at Millfield in Somerset, where he learned to ride and play polo. Back then Millfield was the only school in the country that played polo, with its own instructor, own ponies and polo ground. ‘Alan Kent was at Millfield with me,’ Copeland recalls, ‘and already showing the talent that eventually took him to 8 goals and onto the England team.’ After leaving Millfield, Copeland says, ‘I left polo behind and didn’t see another horse until I was a rock star and ensconced in the obligatory country palace wondering what the hell to do with myself out there in the sticks.’ When a mate then took Copeland to watch chukkas on a back field at Guards Polo Club, memories of the game came flooding back. ‘Aha,’ he thought, ‘just the thing. So I strode into the clubhouse thinking “sell me a pony, sign me up!” This was at the height of the Police hysteria and the girl in the office was blushing, fawning and fainting – obviously a fan – as she ushered me into the inner sanctum of Major Ronald Ferguson, the polo manager. Eyebrows bristling, Ronnie began grilling me: “Who the devil
Then there were the risks involved in playing polo, studios and record companies and especially insurers don’t take kindly to stars risking their necks in such activities
are you? Are you a member of the HPA, at least the USPA? Do you have a handicap? No? Well, I’m afraid you’re rather an unknown quantity.” Maybe he was put-off by my turquoise polka dot shirt, my badly peroxided hair and the wild gleam in my eye. I often wonder whether, when he got home, Ronnie asked his daughter Fergie (who became the Duchess of York): “What the hell is The Police?”’ Copeland’s welcome at the smaller Kirtlington Park Polo Club in Oxfordshire, which happened to be close to his country place, was entirely different. ‘When I said I had played at Millfield, it was like I had come from Sandhurst – much respect. So that’s where I got back into the game. I found it amusing when, some years later, I was back at Guards winning the biggest low goal tournament of all, the Archie David.’ So much for Major Ferguson’s ‘unknown quantity’. Over the following years Copeland got really serious about his polo, with a practice ground on his Buckinghamshire property and as many as 12 ponies in his string. ‘I had two favourites,’ he recalls. ‘One was Horatio, a bay gelding on which I won in the second chukka of overtime in the Archie David. Then there was a New Zealand mare, Zola, who was so fast and nippy that she would make up for any mistake I made. It was as if she knew where I wanted the ball to go.’ Copeland called his teams Outlandos, after The Police’s first hit album Outlandos d’Amour (1978). He remained faithful to Kirtlington as his ‘home club’, but started playing everywhere. ‘One day at Cirencester Park Polo Club,’ he remembers, ‘a big voice came booming across the ground: “Hey, rock star – let’s play some polo!” It was Colin “Sooty” Dhillon, and from then on, maybe for twelve years or more, we played together as the Outlandos. ‘Neither of us were that concerned about collecting bits of silverware, we were just out to have fun, playing as amateurs in low goal and medium goal tournaments. We lost a lot but won some as well, like that Archie David and, in 1994, the Hurlingham Polo Association 8-goal tournament at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club. ‘We also played abroad for several years, notably in the USA,’ says Copeland. ‘After the English summer season, we would fly over to play in the States, a tour if you like: Los Angeles, Long Island, Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, Washington DC. We even played 20-goal polo in Hawaii, with New Zealand 9-goaler Stuart Mackenzie on the team. Sometimes a club would bill us as ‘England’, which must have put a few noses out of joint back home.’ In 1992 Copeland, by then living in California, was brought into a subsidiary celebrity match organised by the Empire Polo Club near Palm Springs. It was a 40-40 spectacular with all the 10-goal superstars of that day. Copeland recalls the line-up: ‘Music promoter and publisher Bryan Morrison and
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my fellow drummer Kenney Jones flew over from England, joining me and Micky Dolenz, late of The Monkees, as ‘Rock World’ playing ‘Film World’ with Bill Devane, Doug Sheehan and a couple of other Hollywood types.’ Copeland also remembers playing charity exhibition matches in England with Prince Charles, including one Fourth of July at Cirencester Park with Copeland playing at number one and Charles at back. Over the years Copeland has played all over the world: Argentina, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Switzerland, Kenya, even Japan (‘a lot of places I’ve toured as a musician – of course I’m not the only drummer to be attracted by the rhythm of horses’ hooves on turf’). ‘There’s Ginger Baker of Cream; Mike Rutherford (Genesis, Mike & the Mechanics) and Kenney Jones (Small Faces, The Who). In music, by coincidence, we all have been involved in revivals over the past couple of years. In polo, Kenney owns his own club, Hurtwood
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Park, and Ginger is developing a place in South Africa. Mike was playing polo until last year. I’m the only one who’s been out of the sport for some time now.’ Copeland ‘retired’ for several reasons. ‘I just got too busy with my music,’ he says. ‘Drumming and recording and composing film scores, operas and orchestral works – if for some reason I had to drop everything but one, I would stick with orchestral composing. Then there were the risks involved in playing polo. I never minded them and have had my share of cuts and bruises and broken ribs. But studios and record companies and especially insurers don’t take kindly to stars risking their necks in such activities.’ Copeland remembers his polo-playing days like they were yesterday: the players, the ponies, the victories and defeats and especially the camaraderie: ‘Normally musicians don’t hang out with non-music or non-artists – “civilians” as we call them.
What polo taught me was that “normal” people – bankers, real estate developers, all sorts of types who play the game – can be damned interesting and amusing.’ After Tuscany, the band hit the road: 43 gigs in North America, 23 in Europe and finishing at Wembley Stadium. Most venues, up to 80,000 seats, had been sold out within an hour of tickets going on sale. After Europe, the group heads back to the US, then to Latin America and Asia. Maybe Copeland can be enticed to watch a match at Palermo, and return to polo with the Outlandos. Now that would be a great revival. For tour dates visit www.thepolicetour.com
In music it’s money in, happily. In polo it was all cash out. Horses are hungry beasts
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polo’s property boom
The historic Gulfstream and Palm Beach clubs inspired the concept of the polo country club. Sarah Eakin looks at the prospects for the new generation of developments 26 27
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Some of the new Aiken developments boast top-quality ‘championship’ polo fields – the key to success for any development wishing to define itself as a polo ‘club’
Real estate can be a fast track to the American dream. John D Rockefeller said America’s major fortunes were made in land, and for America’s polo clubs especially, the development of that land has certainly dictated fortunes. When Florida’s Gulfstream Polo Club was relocated in 1953 from Delray to Lake Worth in Palm Beach County, land was some $1,000 per acre. This year, acreage at the club was under contract to be sold for 300 times that amount. Thanks to the presence of polo, property prices have increased and are appealing to new residents in Wellington and Lake Worth in Palm Beach County. In addition, as seen with Gulfstream, the impact on real estate can have a knock-on effect on the clubs themselves. When Bill Ylvisaker first had a vision for Palm Beach Polo & Country Club in the 1970s, he was playing polo with friends at Gulfstream. It was the kind of club where several players got together and played, socialised and kept their horses in understated barns surrounding the communal polo fields. It was a polo club, in the raw sense of the word. But Ylvisaker was thinking bigger and imagining a polo ‘development’. Even though the land he had in mind was at the time nothing but a swamp, with his foresight and conviction, it became America’s first true polo and country club. The Palm Beach Polo and Country Club –
Left Gulfstream Polo Club in the 1960s Above The crowds came in their numbers every Sunday
featuring golf courses, a tennis club, pristine polo fields, a field-side stadium, club barns and even horses for rent by visiting players – was a huge success and changed the face of high goal polo in the United States. Since being scaled down in recent years after Ylvisaker sold out, there has been nothing to match the club in terms of experiencing the storybook polo way of life: powerful businessmen playing polo at the weekend after a Learjet commute into Palm Beach International Airport with Argentine professionals drafted in to heighten competition on the field. Breakfast at the Tennis Club followed by lunch at the Players Club completed the polo lifestyle, with Sundays featuring a game on the crowdpacked number one field. On Mondays players and their patrons hit the golf course and talked over the week ahead while their families romped in the country club pool and lunched at the Tikki Bar. The model has since inspired others, like South Carolina’s New Bridge Polo and Country Club, founded in 2000 by businessman Russ McCall and Argentine professional Matias Magrini. Together they built a ‘polo and country club’ in Aiken, where a spring and fall season was starting to attract the attention of the US polo scene and players were beginning to set up shop. With land prices around two to three thousand per acre in the area, New Bridge set the stage for a polo boom in Aiken, building
upon an initial surge of interest in the area generated by the town’s newest polo residents, Owen Rinehart and Adam Snow. Following the advent of the USPA Gold Cup Polo Championship, which New Bridge hosted for two years, many prospectors began to think of combining equestrian sports with real estate sales. Today, there are upwards of 40 equestrian developments in Aiken County. With the city of Aiken hosting a modest population of 40,000, outsiders may fail to see the reasoning. But Aiken is attractive: it boasts a unique combination of sandy soil, excellent footing, historical links to polo and other equestrian pursuits and a horse-friendly community. Some of the new Aiken developments like New Bridge and Brigadoon (a newer version) also boast two top-quality ‘championship’ polo fields – the key to success for any development wishing to position itself for the polo market, and define itself as a polo ‘club’. Other developments have further combined polo and equestrian facilities. Unlike in Gulfstream’s early days when a polo field and a track would suffice, many clubs today offer trail riding and dressage/jumping arenas in addition to the polo amenities. New developments are further seeking a competitive edge by linking up with sporting personalities. The nature-lovers’ equestrian community Bridle Creek, on Aiken’s south side development and whose partners
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hurlingham [ real estate]
Current developments are seeking a competitive edge by linking up with sporting personalities
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include Julian Daniels and his wife Dineen, boasts Australian three-day event Olympic champion Phillip Dutton as its ‘poster boy’. Brigadoon, on the other hand, has Aiken’s own 6-goaler Tiger Kneece, who is well known and respected in his home town, and will manage the polo side of the club. Memo Gracida is linked to a new venture in Port Mayaca, Florida, which is being developed by Steve Orthwein and which is one of four new Florida polo clubs that are simultaneously opening in the state. Gracida owns a private facility nearby and Orthwein says he has been ‘a big help, consultant and supporter’. Orthwein’s vision is simple: ‘I’d like to see much more of a “club”. Teams often come and play and leave right after the game. We are going to host some barbeques and socialise after polo. It will be the kind of club where I may play against you this week and on the same team as you next week.’ While the club’s founders may set the tone, it’s the players’ image that affects the overall perception. No one knows this better than Bob Whitley of Whitley Development Group, who is the owner and developer of Hobe Sound Polo Club – located 30 minutes from Palm Beach International Airport and close to the coveted beaches of Hobe Sound on the Atlantic shore. The club is a partnership between Robert Whitley, Tucker Frederickson and Rockwood Capital, and they in turn are partnering with a triumvirate of polo players: Ted Brinkmann, Andres Weisz and Merle Jenkins. When Hobe Sound was ready to pursue new members, it made the announcement that Adolfo Cambiaso had purchased a lot in the club in partnership with Andres Weisz. The players would not only use the Hobe Sound Polo Club as a base to train and maintain horses from Cambiaso’s renowned breeding operation in Argentina, but also for the 10-goaler’s horse operation and practice while playing at the International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPC). Located 20 minutes away in the heart of Wellington, IPC is Florida’s new high goal club, but while it fulfills its role as a world-class polo venue, it does not have real estate options linked to it. Within a week of the Cambiaso announcement, the first phase of Hobe Sound Polo Club had sold out and reservations were already being taken for the second. ‘It is the greatest opportunity to have him as a partner,’ says Weisz, who plans to also build a field at the club. ‘The Hobe Sound
Polo Club has opened up a lot of new opportunities for professional players. We are going to run a first-class operation and I expect the club will have many private fields to complement the club’s own five fields and two practice fields. Hobe Sound Polo Club will be a family-oriented club. You have the beaches close and little traffic. With 20-acre estates and 8,000 acres of surrounding undeveloped land, Hobe Sound is perfect for people who like horses or just prefer a peaceful environment.’ In addition to Hobe Sound, three new clubs are also springing up on the Florida map: Orthwein’s Port Mayaca Plantation on Lake Okeechobee (the second biggest freshwater lake in the US); the neighboring Lake Point Ranches, offered for sale by Brad Scherer and Atlantic Western Reality; and The Ranch, an upscale residential and polo development at Yeehaw Junction which is a new extension of the Vero Beach Polo Club.
Top Port Mayaca Plantation with access the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico Below Brigadoon’s Cato family: Edgar Cato (standing), Christine Cato and the club’s own professional Tiger Kneece
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Top Perfect location: Hobe Sound Polo Club with the Atlantic shore behind and I-95 and the Florida Turnpike in front Below Bill Ylvisaker started Palm Beach Polo Club in the 1970s
The new wave of Florida clubs could attract new players and encourage polo at the lower and higher levels
Gulfstream Polo Club revived and new private fields still appearing. The Outback League for 8-goal and 14-goal is strong and even without the private fields there are enough fields to play the high goal at International Polo Club Palm Beach. There are 80 polo fields either in Wellington or within an hour’s drive.’ Roy also believes the new wave of Florida clubs could help attract new players. ‘They are going to breed a lot of new polo at the lower and higher levels,’ he says. ‘It’s farm teams, like in baseball, meaning a lot of smaller teams that feed new players for the big league. That shows a lot of the richness of the industry right now. ‘In Argentina 25 years ago Gonzalo Pieres contributed to creating Pilar in a big way. Eventually there were 200 fields outside of Buenos Aires and that supported the polo epicenter. His personal farm now has nine fields, built year after year. The growth of new polo centres outside of Buenos Aires continues to this day.’ The 100-acre Gulfstream complex – which was recently on the brink of closure and is now being revived under new management – was originally owned by shareholders, some of whom died. But now, with changing circumstances, pieces have been privately
sold off. The ‘new wave’ Florida clubs, however, have certain deeds in place to resist such eventualities. They are located in areas where lot sales are restricted to 20-acre minimum parcels and are benefiting from rules in Martin County that restrict homes in rural areas to one unit per 20 acres. (The exception is Yeehaw Junction’s The Ranch, which is confined to 200 homes including one-acre lots on 4,000 acres.) ‘Their development codes have a unique opportunity to attract these kinds of uses,’ Scherer told the Palm Beach Post about the plot sizes. ‘We don’t have to worry about a shopping center being build next to us in a couple of years.’ ‘We are creating a very upscale home community, and making sure the deeds are in place to protect it,’ says Brinkmann. ‘Gulfstream was never upscale and it was mostly barns.’ Whatever the future may hold for Wellington, however, Gulfstream Polo Club will remain one of polo’s historic venues. Orthwein is among many who have a fondness for the club. ‘I grew up playing there, and was around the best polo players in the US,’ he says. A lot of players learned to play at Gulfstream, and every player in America has played there at some time in his life.’
LOMINSKA
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All of them have appeal beyond the polo fields and sport extensive trail riding along with other amenities. Port Mayaca Plantation, for example, has club barns for visiting teams but shares the boating appeal with Lake Point Ranches, the clubs being located on opposite sides of the St Lucie River and allowing access to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Meanwhile Hobe Sound, which sits by itself in eastern Martin County due north of Wellington, offers a less remote location, closer to high-end shopping and the beaches. Real estate prices also vary. The Ranch’s home sites start at $300,000 while Port Mayaca Plantation’s acreage starts at $55,000. Lake Point Ranches is offering 20-acre lots from $36,000 to $60,000 per acre and at Hobe Sound Polo Club, 20-acre plots can be bought for $1.7m. The new locations were found by looking outside Palm Beach County as developers sought to compensate for sky-high land prices. ‘We began by looking around Palm Beach County without success,’ said polo player Brinkmann. ‘When we met and put the deal together with Bob Whitley and the Rockwood Corporation it just worked. The Hobe Sound Polo Club is in a unique location. It is located on an amazing piece of land neighboring the 8,000-acre Atlantic Ridge State Park. It is a reasonable commute if you want to keep your house in Palm Beach. I plan to continue to practice as a veterinary surgeon in Lake Worth but commute to Hobe Sound for polo.’ The addition of the new clubs is seen as positive for the future of Florida polo. Frederic Roy, publisher of the Morning Line, is a Wellington resident and has monitored the progress of the local polo venues over the past 20 years. ‘Polo is much stronger in Wellington now,’ he says. ‘We have
0! , !# ) / $ 5 ( !5 0! 2 + ( 9!4 4 " 5 % . / 3 ! ) 2 % 3 4HE !RGENTINE CAPITAL RENOWNED FOR POLO IS WELCOMING A NEW GEM TO ITS FASHIONABLE 2ECOLETA DISTRICT ON !VENIDA !LVEAR &EATURING A BEAUTIFUL GARDEN AND AN INSPIRATIONAL ARRAY OF SIGHTS AND EXPERIENCES THE HOTEL BRILLANTLY INTEGRATES INNOVATIVE CONTEMPORARY DESIGN WITH THE CITY S CLASSICAL TH CENTURY h0ALACIOv ARCHITECTURE
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Luxury fashion brand Brioni and the sport of polo share a tradition of excellence and style WORDS EDWINA INGS-CHAMBERS
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Flicking through archive photographs of Brioni’s dedicated clients is like celebrityspotting target practice. There’s a cigaretteholding Clark Gable being measured for a jacket. There’s Victor Mature bearing a dazzling smile and sunglasses while trying on the perfect white shirt. Or take Peter Fonda, standing ramrod straight for a suit fitting or another, of John Wayne looking relaxed, happy and decidedly uncowboyish in a perfectly-fitting jacket. Then there’s none other than Richard Burton, eyes locked on Liz, on a night out during the filming of Cleopatra and perfectly encased in an evening suit. And my-oh-my, wasn’t Peter Sellers sleek in a Brioni light-coloured astrakhan coat. One could continue the Brioni-powered name-dropping but the point is clear: from the day this house of sartorial perfectionism was founded in 1945, its tailoring was sought by those who understood the true meaning of excellence. ‘The house style cannot be categorized only as “classic”, “sartorial”, “Italian”,’ says Andrea Perrone, one of the brand’s three coCEOs. ‘Much of what it does transcends fashion and achieves what can be described as contemporary and elegant Brioni style.’ A Brioni suit, he continues, represents the pinnacle of men’s classic elegance with a modern, sensual and contemporary touch, ‘a special blend of technique and experience, research and style, produced in the best fabrics with sophisticated detailing. A tradition long favoured by the powerful international elite.’ Fitting, then, that polo and Brioni should be well matched. The historic link between the two was established in the early decades of the 1900s: ‘A Tourist Board poster for the Brioni Islands dating back to 1937 aptly represents the bond between Brioni and the
exclusive Italian island resort where polo was played for the first time ever in Italy in 1924,’ recounts Perrone. ‘It was this poster, based on an earlier epoch of European aristocracy, grandeur and café society, that inspired the name and essence of the Brioni brand as a luxury product for the elite.’ It was the polo player featured in that original poster’s foreground that has since been used as a recurring motif since the Sartoria Brioni was first established, and it is still found on the lining of Brioni jackets today. The sport of polo reflects the luxury brand’s values, says Perrone. ‘This noble and versatile sporting discipline with a tradition dating back many centuries inspired the Brioni brand – which has come to represent elegance and refinement to sophisticated international consumers who are today reappraising a sport deeply rooted in tradition and reserved to a select few.’ In 2004 Brioni revived the tradition of polo on the Brioni Island by organising the Brioni Classic Tournament. The event, Perrone says, brought together ‘elegance, passion, dynamism and skill, horsemanship and courage – values that harmonise perfectly with the Brioni brand and the history of the company.’ The fashion house has also participated in the last two Cartier Polo World Cup on Snow tournaments in St Moritz – even winning the cup this year with a Brioni team led by 9-goaler Eduardo Novillo Astrada. The next team will be announced in the fall, which Guy Schwarzenbach, the 24-year-old son of the president of the St Moritz Polo Club, will be a part of. In St Moritz next January Brioni will also launch its new capsule polo collection. Polo and Brioni remain deeply connected, and it
Elegance, passion, dynamism, skill and courage – these values harmonise perfectly with the Brioni brand
Tailor-made Clark Gable was one of many Hollywood icons dressed by Brioni
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is a link the firm cares about, since many of its clients are also polo enthusiasts. Created for polo players and fans, the style and fabrics of the new collection will adapt to the needs of the game but also to Brioni’s stylish tradition. ‘Brioni and polo have proud traditions that continue generation after generation,’ says Perrone. ‘It is this Brioni uniqueness which has taken this exclusive brand from its origins in the poloplaying world of the 1920s and 30s to its global 21st century elite.’ Of course, mallet swinging isn’t all there is to Brioni. For many, the name is synonymous with James Bond. The fashion house has been the official dresser of the British film character since Pierce Brosnan reprised the role with GoldenEye. ‘When Lindy Hemming became costume designer for the James Bond movies, she broke with tradition in selecting his suits,’ recalls Perrone. ‘For over 30 years Agent 007 wore Londontailored suits, but she decided that his look should be “contemporary classic”. And she turned to Brioni. She clearly felt that we could provide the sartorial excellence and production expertise she was looking for. Of course, we were extremely flattered to dress such an icon of style and glamour. A British hero dressed by an Italian fashion house.’ If this all sounds a trifle eulogistic, consider that the company is still familyowned, with two of the three CEOs direct descendents of the original founders, Nazareno Fonticoli and Gaetano Savini. Perrone, co-CEO in charge of business development, is the grandchild of Savini, while Antonella de Simone, director of communications and marketing, is the grand-daughter of Fonticoli. The third CEO, Antonio Bianchini, who is not a family member, looks after the financial side.
Excellence and luxury were always the Brioni credo, as set by founders Fonticoli and Savini, who sought to create the best of Italian tailoring and style. When they met, Fonticoli was already an expert tailor working in his native town of Penne, while Savini had a knack for business and marketing. Together they set out to take menswear to a higher level. The heart of the company has remained firmly in Italian tailoring. A quarter of the brand’s custom is made-to-measure suiting and only its Rome and Milan stores have dedicated ateliers. They will proudly tell you that there are 220 stages to making a jacket, involving 200 professionals and taking 22 hours – a suit is not just a suit. Almost all of the firm’s ready-to-wear and made-to-
3
There are 220 stages to making a jacket, involving 200 professionals and taking 22 hours – a suit is not just a suit
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4 5 measure suits are hand-made with approximately 5,000 stitches. Machines are only used for straight seams that do not require elaborate techniques. The brand has always sought to innovate. Brioni was one of the first men’s companies invited to show its designs in 1952 at a fashion show at Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The historic show so impressed American department store buyers that another followed in New York which prompted Life magazine to dub Brioni the ‘men’s Dior’. Perrone explains how Brioni had already made an impact at the time by eroding the formal dress codes of Savile Row and introducing softer cuts and fabrics, along with less rigid use of colour, an emphasis on comfort, greater versatility and a wider choice. It’s a tradition of perfecting its sartorial techniques that the brand maintains to respond to the needs of its worldly clientele. The brand also takes credit for the concept of the ‘total look’. Perrone explains: ‘Brioni launched the “total look” from the very outset. The first Brioni shops were very innovative for the times: everything from coats to the smallest accessories could be bought there and in stocking such a wide range of exclusive goods, Brioni definitely created what, many years later, was to become known as the total look.’ Like other luxury firms such as Bottega Veneta, Brioni also invests in the skills that have formed the basis of the house to ensure they continue into the future. In 1985 it founded the Scuola Superiore di Sartoria to teach tailoring, and most recently, the company has been steadily growing due to the rising demand for hand-made tailoring. These days Brioni is expanding around the world. Its first Indian boutique opened
in Mumbai in March, and it recently opened in St Petersburg, Kiev and Ekaterinburg in Russia. Future plans include a new Wall Street boutique and new stores in the main emerging markets in Asia along the ‘New Silk Road’. Territory that isn’t new, however, is women’s wear, which currently makes up 10 per cent of the company’s turnover. ‘Brioni has always dressed women,’ says Perrone. ‘Since its early days in the fifties, famous actresses such as Ava Gardner, Anna Magnani and other famous socialites have been long-time customers of the Brioni women’s collection. Today there is growing demand for beautifully-made clothing from a sophisticated clientele around the world. Brioni’s slogan is ‘To Be One of a Kind’. Or put another way: for tailoring excellence, Brioni is kind of The One. Edwina Ings-Chambers is deputy fashion editor of the Financial Times
Brioni created what, many years later, was to become known as the ‘total look’
1 The first menswear runway show, at Pitti, Florence in 1952 2 Vintage Brioni poster 3 Eduardo Novillo Estrada of the Brioni team is fitted by a master tailor at the London store 4 Lady Mountbatten with the Malta team 5 Founders Nazareno Fonticoli and Gaetano Savini
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sea and sardegna American businessman Thomas Barrack speaks to Emma Tucker about his love of sailing and his mission to bring the sport of polo to the Costa Smeralda As recently as a few years ago, the Mediterranean island of Sardinia had never heard of a chukka, let alone hosted a polo tournament. Today, thanks largely to one determined player, the island surrounded by Corsica, Italy, Spain and Tunisia now has a fledgling polo scene with its very own Costa Smeralda Cup. The man behind introducing polo to the island is Thomas Barrack, chairman and chief executive of Los Angeles-based private equity firm Colony Capital. Barrack, a sports enthusiast from the west coast of America, was brought up riding horses with the junior Rodeo Cowboy Association. But he only discovered polo 12 years ago, having previously dismissed it as a game for rich kids. ‘I have always been a
horse fanatic,’ he explains. ‘Jumpers, roping, hunting. A friend of mine invited me to stick-and ball one day 13 years ago and it was over – I was addicted.’ Now he’s a fully paid-up ambassador for the game who likens the sport’s dedication, commitment and teamwork – those required for success in polo – to the rough and tumble of the business world. ‘I have always looked at polo as a sharpening of my life skills,’ he says. Barrack was already familiar with Sardinia through his other passion: ‘Yachting,’ he says, ‘is another great addiction. Everything that is fast and beautiful fascinates me. I had been coming through on boats for 21 years and just falling in love with the island and the people.’
It was no surprise then that in 2003 Barrack bought the Costa Smeralda, a luxury resort stretching 65 miles along the island’s northern coast that was founded by the Aga Khan in the early 1960s. It was only a matter of time before Barrack embarked on an ambitious dream to bring polo to Sardinia. ‘Sardinia is an island with an amazing heritage,’ Barrack says. ‘It has a very long and loving history with horses. The environment is perfect for raising and breeding them.’ And it wasn’t just the horses that made Sardinia an ideal destination. The island already offered the key combination of sport (sailing) and glamour that are critical to attracting polo lovers and their families. Over a number of summers spent holidaying in Europe with his wife and children, Barrack admired the success of polo Above Cala di Volpe, one of four Colony Capital hotels on the Costa Smeralda Right Barrack in action
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events such as those held in St Tropez in France. ‘The demand in Europe for summer polo outside the UK was sensational,’ he says. Moreover, those most likely to support polo were already regularly visiting Sardinia. ‘For four to five months of the year megabillionaires come here for the yachting,’ says Barrack. ‘Every 50 metre-plus yacht in the Med comes through Costa Smeralda at least once a year. The idea was to have the beautiful setting of the island – the sea, the rocks, the fun environment, the things that make it so popular for yachting – and to combine all that with a decent polo scene.’ Sardinia’s foray into polo began in earnest last summer with one field and a 14-goal tournament, the Costa Smeralda Cup. The second season will involve eight teams. Now Barrack is building two more fields, allowing the island to host some 10 to 12 teams. The idea is to build Sardinia into the European circuit with one tournament before St Tropez and one after.
‘We don’t want it to be huge,’ explains Barrack. ‘We want it to be fun and appropriate for what the place is. It isn’t really about size. The idea was to have a beautiful polo opportunity two to three times a year at a level that was discreet. The real objective is to make it excellent rather than grand.’ He believes that polo in Europe will see a Mediterranean circuit of smaller polo clubs acting as satellites to the grander clubs – those in the UK, Deauville and Sotogrande. Ventures such as his in Sardinia ‘provide another outlet,’ he says. ‘It’s never going to be competitive with the UK, as it doesn’t have those kinds of facilities, but it is an easy place to pasture horses. I think we have an opportunity to take England as the polo mecca, but then to have satellite tournaments all around Europe.’ Barrack predicts more polo ‘outcroppings’ in places around St Tropez that can house horses, such as Aix-en-Provence and Marseille. So far the venture has pleased not only Sardinia’s regular tourists, but the locals too. Until Colony Capital bought the Costa Smeralda, Sardinia’s interest in equine matters extended to just a few race tracks. Now the locals have enthusiastically adopted polo, not least because Barrack’s venture is now the island’s second-biggest employer after the government. ‘It’s a bit like sailing,’ reflects Barrack. ‘Before yachting really took off the locals were not really amenable to the sea – but now they have taken to it. Polo is the same.
The idea was to have the beautiful setting of the island – things that make it popular for yachting – and to combine that with a decent polo scene The visitors who come to Costa Smeralda – whether to spend time on a yacht, play polo or simply have a holiday – are mainly Europeans, including Russians and Arabs. Only 15 per cent of visitors are American. America is still home for Barrack, although he has properties around the globe. His Santa Barbara ranch in California has four polo fields and an estate where he rears horses and cultivates a vineyard. This is where his family – which includes a poloplaying son – lives during the school term. When not attending to polo, Barrack remains a sailing enthusiast and has derived enormous pleasure from building up a fleet of super-yachts to lend to guests staying in the resort, which comprises four hotels, two ports and a golf course. ‘It all fits perfectly into the polo lifestyle,’ says Barrack, who somehow manages to find time for polo between a hectic schedule that usually involves travelling five days week – in his private jet, of course.
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for a good cause Above (from left) The Queen, Colonel Paul Belcher and Basil Al-Ghalayini, President of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which raises funds for Middle East charities, at one of three polo matches the Queen attended this summer
DVD ACTION
ALICE GIPP; CENTAUR
Whether it’s protecting the black rhino in Africa or benefiting children, over one million pounds was raised at polo charity events in the UK this summer. Herbert Spencer looks at what makes polo and charities the perfect match
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Benefitting the British Armed Forces at Sandhurst: (from left) John Goodman, John Paul Clarkin, the Stanford Group’s Jack Staley, international opera singer and British Forces Foundation trustee Katherine Jenkins, Major General Peter Pearson, Nina Clarkin and Prince William
If the ancient Persians had not devised the game of polo in the first centuries BC, some clever 21st century AD charities promoter might well have thought it up. Polo is, after all, a perfect pursuit around which to organise fund-raising events. Pound for pound, it provides a cost-effective way to bring in money to benefit good causes. Philanthropy, both corporate and individual, is often about image. It is also about what one might call the ‘feel-good factor’, as giving punters a good time encourages generosity. As a sport with a high social profile, polo is ideally placed to attract both corporate sponsors and wellheeled guests. Beautiful settings, exciting sport and lavish hospitality are the recipe for a good time indeed.
Most important, of course, is keeping down the costs of fund-raising events in order to maximise the net proceeds. This is where polo scores over other charity balls in central London where the costs of venues, catering, entertainment and the like can cut into the profits that accrue to the charity. By contrast, polo clubs provide venues either for free or for minimal fees, and polo players, from amateurs who own teams to the world’s top professionals, donate their time and talents to provide the ‘entertainment’ – exhibition matches – around which the charity events are staged. The players themselves also donate to the auctions held at the events: the chance to play a match with the world’s greatest player at his Argentine club and also take home one of his ponies for good measure, for example. Stand back and watch the bidding skyrocket. At one time virtually all the highestnetting polo charity events were based on what the late Major Ronald Ferguson, the Prince of Wales’s long-time polo manager, irreverently termed ‘rent-a-royal’. When Prince Charles was playing in a tournament or exhibition match, corporate sponsors would pay as much as £50,000 to associate their names with the event and see their executives and clients shaking hands with the heir to the throne. During his long playing career, Charles’s polo helped raise tens of millions of pounds for a wide variety of good causes, from his Prince’s Trust to protecting the black rhino in Africa. In 2004, Charles’s last season as a player, he and sons William and Harry helped raise £940,000 for 28 charities. This year, however, with only Prince William playing a limited number of exhibitions, there were fewer occasions in which royal connections made the events a success.
A nationwide review of ‘chukkas for charity’ indicates that well over a million pounds was raised at polo in the UK this summer, despite weeks of atrocious weather that forced cancellation of some fund-raising events. Surprisingly, it was smaller clubs rather than larger ones that did best in the charity league tables. Ham Polo Club was by far the champion
As a sport with a high social profile, polo is ideally placed to attract both corporate sponsors and well-heeled guests alike fund-raiser for 2007 in terms of the number of events, benefited charities and the net proceeds accruing to them. Over the summer season it staged close to a dozen charity days that netted £384,000 for some 15 good causes at both home and abroad. The total take was more than double that of any other club, large or small. Club chairman Nicholas ColquhounDenvers admits that geography plays a part in Ham’s success. Nestled between popular Richmond Park and historic Ham House, a tourist attraction on the banks of the River Thames, Ham is London’s only remaining polo club. ‘It helps a lot to have such a large catchment area,’ he says. But the club’s policy of holding as many charity events as is feasible is what makes the difference.
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Another fund-raiser with overseas connections was the annual Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) day at Guards Polo Club, one of just a handful of Guards events attended by the Queen. The GCC day, which raised £70,000 for charities in the Middle East and Pakistan, was the only Guards charity event in 2007, although it does play a major role as host club and organiser in the Cartier International Day, the Hurlingham Polo Association’s flagship event. Most of the HPA’s profits from the day go into its Polo Charity Trust, and is upwards of £100,000 annually.
Surprisingly, it was smaller clubs rather than larger ones that did best in the charity league tables JUAN PEPA
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Ham’s most successful charity day was its annual event in aid of ChildLine, netting £110,000. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, of which the charity is now a part, says this is ChildLine’s largest single source of income. Another Ham event, the Chakravarty Cup, for which Prince William played in an exhibition match, brought in £100,000 for charitites in the UK and Africa. The world’s leading player, Argentinian 10-goaler Adolfo Cambiaso, was much in evidence at Ham charity events – as was his Dubai team patron, Ali Albwardy, who is also the club’s president. In one event supported by sponsor Jaeger-LeCoultre, Adolfo donated a pony which was auctioned for £15,o00, helping to raise £69,000 for the Argentine children’s charity Ideas del Sur. Another Argentine charity, Fundación Pro Alvear, organised by its polo-playing president Juan Pepa of Citigroup in London, raised £11,000. It was one of the London club’s most glamorous days, with 600 guests including model Claudia Schiffer, and the restaurant Cipriani and nightspot Cuckoo Club also involved. Second to Ham in the fund-raising stakes is Beaufort Polo Club, whose three charity days this summer brought in £190,000. The Gloucestershire club’s biggest event, in aid of St James’s Place Foundation for children with special needs, raised £75,000. The three charity events at Cirencester Park Polo Club this year brought in £110,000. Its top fundraiser, featuring Prince William in an exhibition match, raised £50,000 for good causes nominated by the prince. Hurtwood Park Polo Club is usually one of the top charity earners with its owner, drummer Kenney Jones, staging crowddrawing pop concerts with exhibition matches. Unfortunately the weather forced cancellation of some events this year, so the club held only three charity days, raising a total of £100,000. Cowdray Park Polo Club’s day to benefit Breast Cancer was also cancelled, but it had local charities on hand at both the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup final and the England v South America test match. Only a few thousand pounds were donated, but the events served to raise the charities’ profiles. At the small Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Polo Club (RMASPC), a unique ‘hands across the seas’ charity event has been an annual pilgrimage for American team patrons John Goodman and Tim Gannon, both winners of the US Open Championship, who fly over to donate their time and money as players. The US-based Stanford Financial Group also supports the event. This year, according to organiser Mark Cann, the Sandhurst charity day netted £85,000 of which £35,000 went to the British Forces Foundation that entertains British forces serving overseas. The rest went to supporting polo at Sandhurst and in the armed services.
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Polo in the UK has clearly shown itself to be a ‘caring sport’, fund-raising for scores of diverse charities at home and overseas, but what about caring for its own? Not a single club in the country reported any fund-raiser for polo players in need. Lord Patrick Beresford, retired 5-goal player and former team-mate of the Duke of Edinburgh, has been lobbying the HPA to support the foundation of a new charity that will benefit those players in the sport who need help because of injury or illness. ‘The polo world was extremely generous a few years ago in raising money to support Andrew Seavill (a player paralysed in a road accident), but what happens next time?’ questions Beresford, who is also a former chef d’equipe of the British equestrian team. ‘We should build up a fund for players, professional and amateur alike, and include grooms as well, who need financial support, rather like racing’s Injured Jockeys Fund or the Polo Players Support Group (PPSG) in the United States.’ The US polo charity was founded in 2001 following a successful fund-raising campaign for Rob Walton, the 7-goal American player left paralysed by a polo accident in Malaysia. According to Dave Offen, director of the PPSG, the charity has raised $1.5m since its inception, through individual tax-deductible donations of up
to $20,000 as well as fund-raising events at various clubs around the country. PPSG lists all kinds of individuals helped by its financial support: from a 3-goal player injured in a road accident while transporting ponies, to a groom seriously wounded in a stabbing incident. Thus far in 2007 the charity has paid out $130,000 in assistance grants, with $50,000 held in reserve for the rest of the year. Beresford believes his idea for a polospecific charity like the one the Americans have has ‘fallen on deaf ears’. Apparently the HPA’s view is that its Polo Charity Trust serves the purpose. This trust, however, largely funds youth programmes and military polo and makes only smaller donations to players in need. ‘I think the existing trust’s remit is too broad for effective player support,’ argues Beresford. ‘If I were donating £1,000 specifically for helping players or grooms,’ he adds, ‘I would not be happy knowing that part of my contribution might be used for things like funding polo in the Pony Clubs or the military.’ Beresford hopes the HPA might have a rethink. ‘Not all polo and polo-related families are well-to-do,’ he says. ‘There are bound to be occasions when those less welloff will need support and the sport should be geared up to help them.’
Polo in the UK has clearly shown itself to be a ‘caring sport’ but not a single club reported any fundraiser for polo players
1 Claire Milford Haven with Adolfo Cambiaso at Ham for the Ideas del Sur charity 2 Bautista Heguy and Juan Pepa (right) at Ham’s Fundación Pro Alvear event 3 Referees Nicolas Talamoni and Peter McCormack share a joke with a model Inga carrying a Meli Melo bag as Patrick Teroerde (far left) and Alexander Nix look onto the crowds at Ham’s Fundación Pro Alvear event
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the action
ALICE GIPPS
[drama] Catch up with all the latest action from around the world
44 Queen’s Cup
50 Cartier International
56 European round-up
Polo at its best in this year’s fast-flowing final at Guards Polo Club
Chile’s emotional victory was a fitting tribute to Gabriel Donoso
Polo drew the crowds to high-profile events in some up-and-coming polo venues
46 Gold Cup
52 Deauville
62 Florence
The weather did its worst, but couldn’t stop the showpiece event at Cowdray Park
The famous old French club is bouncing back in its centenary year
Two British Army teams met in historic surroundings to recreate a match played in 1869
48 Sotogrande
54 Low and medium goal
Polo in southern Spain is growing fast, and Sotogrande is now a major polo destination
The Victor Ludorum tournaments reflect the continued growth of polo in the UK
Above A flying Facundo Pieres (right) is hooked by Juan Martin in the finals of the Queen’s Cup
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Queen’s Cup Herbert Spencer follows the close action at Guards Polo Club and praises Loro Piana’s first English victory in the high goal Among England’s ‘big four’ high goal tournaments, the Queen’s Cup at Guards Polo Club has always been considered second to Cowdray Park’s British Open Championship. As it turned out, all things considered, one could argue that those positions reversed during the 2007 season, not helped of course by the terrible weather and several cancellations as a result. Entries for the Vivari Queen’s Cup this year increased by more than a fourth to a record 22 teams, making it the biggest high goal tournament anywhere in the world. For the first time the competition combined with another of the country’s four 22-goal tournaments, for The Prince of Wales Trophy. The Queen’s Cup finale was one of the finest high goal finals in many years – in contrast to the injury that plagued the finish of the British Open for the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup. And the Queen’s Cup set the stage for all four members of the winning team having their English handicaps raised for 2008 – in itself an unusual if not unique occurrence. Scoring throughout the tournament was unusually close, with 21 of the 43 matches won by a single goal. In the semis it was Ellerston White over Black Bears 12-11 and Loro Piana over Dubai 9-8. Ellerston White came to the final as inheritors of the late Kerry Packer’s no-
expense-spared organisation that won Ellerston White teams five previous Queen’s Cups, including pony power based on the Packer breeding operations in Australia and Argentina. The Packer squad also had more power at the centre with the two Pieres brothers, 10-goaler Facundo and Gonzalo who, although rated 9 in England, is rated 10 in Argentina. Although the Italian Alfio Marchini’s Loro Piana teams had captured a number of high goal prizes in both Spain and Argentina, never once had they won in four years of competing in England. What this year’s team did have, however, was a patron capable of contributing more than the usual playing team-owner. Although playing off 1 in the England, Marchini holds a 4-goal handicap in Argentina. Loro Piana was also a betterbalanced team with 9-goaler Juan Martin Nero, 7-goaler David ‘Pelon’ Stirling Jr and Martin Espain, who is a 5-goaler. The Queen’s Cup final was a match that delighted polo purists, and for spectators less familiar with the game, it showed the sport at its best. It was a fast-flowing contest in which both teams eschewed the tactic of creating fouls, a game-plan that too often mars high goal today, and got on with the job brilliantly. Ironic, then, that in the last seconds of the extra, sudden-death chukka, it was a penalty
ALICE GIPPS; POLOLINE; TONY RAMIREZ
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conversion that gave Loro Piana their 12-11 victory. Pelon Stirling was man of the match and received the Most Valuable Player award from the Queen, with his mount Nutria named Best Playing Pony. Even though Loro Piana fell to Lechuza Caracas in the later British Open Gold Cup final, Marchini’s foursome was clearly the team of the season, as English handicap changes showed. The Italian patron was raised from 1-goal to 2 immediately after the Queen’s Cup final and after the Open, Nero went from 9 to 10 for next season, Stirling from 7 to 8 and Martin Espain from 5 to 6. A 26-goal team, and that’s the way they played the game in 2007.
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Meanwhile, in this season’s new, innovative coupling of two, top high goal tournaments, the second-best eight teams from the Queen’s Cup went on to play for The Prince of Wales Trophy at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club. Tony Pidgley’s Cadenza beat Broncos in a sudden-death seventh chukka, giving Pidgley his second high-goal victory (he took the 18-goal Indian Empire Shield earlier). Pidgley’s Cadenza also made it to the finals of the 22-goal Warwickshire Cup tournament at Cirencester Park Polo Club, but fell to Australian Michael King’s Elysian Fields. King did well to win one of the ‘big four’ in his first season of English high goal.
Marchini’s Loro Piana foursome was clearly the team of the season, as English handicap changes showed 1 Pelon Stirling (left) followed by Facundo Pieres with carriages behind 2 Ignus (Nachi) du Plessis high hooks Adolfo Cambiaso at the quarter finals 3 Gonzalo Pieres had an outstanding game 4 Alfio Marchini accepts the Queen’s Cup from Her Majesty
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A fresh high goal landscape unfolded this summer with a wave of new team names in the spotlight, culminating in a Gold Cup showdown between two first-time finalists. Cowdray Park’s showpiece tournament provided three weeks of almost daily action as some of the decade’s giants fell to less fancied line-ups and organisers fought a constant battle against the elements. On an extraordinary finals day that some will remember for the ‘wrong reasons’, Victor Vargas’s Lechuza Caracas defeated this year’s unbeaten masters of polo clásico, Alfio Marchini’s Loro Piana, in what was Vargas’s third English season and Marchini’s fourth. The tournament was beset by rain as never before. On the fortnight preceding the league stages, 120mm fell; the first day (when play was cancelled) another 30mm; three days later, another 36mm. But polo manager Chris Bethell kept the show on the road and on schedule despite using only four grounds in the first week. The monsoon-like 20th July, when 60mm pelted on Midhurst, coincided with the polo-free pre-final Friday. A gang of 30 Polish treading-in pros blitzed the divots throughout the tournament and on finals day Lawns Two was a vision of springy, smooth turf under clear skies. After exciting semi-finals in which Loro Piana overcame Ellerston White 12-6 and Lechuza beat – by a goal – Les Lions, seasoned spectators predicted a final with less free-running action than previous matches. Loro Piana relies on all four of its players passing beautifully to each other, with Pelon Stirling unconventionally but lethally up front. Lechuza combatted this with a tactical, tight strategy which team member Sebastian Merlos confirmed. ‘We had to play tightly, with Pite and me working closely together and Henry Fisher and Mr Vargas playing hard.’ In the event, the 15,000 spectators witnessed a three-hour marathon. The drama was less the result of the stuttering game and more to do with multiple injuries, substitutions and a streaker, who raised the biggest cheer of the day (and some frowns) by sprinting the length of the ground in his socks, pausing only for a cartwheel. Queen’s Cup winners Loro Piana started badly with Stirling hurting his wrist early on. The Uruguayan struggled until half-time, but as the team’s success depends on the full participation of every player, they never found their stride. Juan Martin Nero, hitherto so tremendous this season that he has gone to 10 goals, looked lost in the face of Stirling’s injury and Lechuza’s tactics of possession. Lechuza were 7-5 up by treading-in time.
The 15,000 spectators witnessed a three-hour marathon, the drama less the result of the stuttering game and more to do with multiple injuries, substitutions and a streaker, who raised the biggest cheer of the day After half-time, Loro Piana wanted to replace Stirling with Nicolas Espain, the 6goal brother of Martin, their back. Nicolas was stick-and-balling in readiness, but because he’d played in the Gold Cup, Pablo Jauretche, who hadn’t, was drafted instead. Loro Piana flagged further, dropping to 9-5, but suddenly Jauretche came to life, scoring his side’s first field goal and galvanising his teammates. By the fifth chukka they were only a goal behind Lechuza. But disaster struck again: Jauretche’s horse tripped, bringing Pite Merlos and his mount down too. Jauretche was unhurt but Merlos broke his nose and officials stepped in to oversee
the substitution. Lechuza were preparing to put in Augustín Merlos while the hunt was on for eights or nines who hadn’t played. As is normal practice, commentator Terry Hanlon asked if there were eligible players in the crowd. Eight-goalers Diego Araya and Alejandro Muzzio were present; however, both declared themselves unfit. Officials and opposition eventually accepted Augustín as a substitute. The process took 35 minutes, and although Hanlon kept the crowd entertained, some spectators were unimpressed by the delay and pointed the finger at the club. ‘The correct thing was being done, but it took too long,’ reasoned Chris Bethell. ‘Having dealt with the first replacement by the book we had to do the right thing for the second. However, the HPA is discussing a new rule where teams must nominate substitutes in advance of semis and finals, so the farce we had will not happen again.’ In the event, Loro Piana watched their hopes of a double win in 2007 evaporate as they missed a series of chances towards the end. Lechuza won 11-10, giving Henry Fisher in particular a day to remember. The 24-year old who last played in the Gold Cup in 1999
ALICE GIPPS; POLOLINE
Witnessing record rainfall and a dramatic final match, Yolanda Carslaw reports from the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup
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for Jerudong Park, was ecstatic: ‘Being part of a large organisation and riding the Lechuza horses has been incredible - and winning at my home club is like a dream.’ ‘This win is wonderful,’ said patron Victor Vargas. ‘We’ve been working for years towards it and now we have the prize.’ How did Lechuza triumph in a year of 20 entries, a dozen of which were serious contenders? First, according to their Argentinian manager Steven Scott, things ‘just worked’ – especially with Fisher at back. Second, half of Lechuza’s horses remained in England last winter, unlike the previous two seasons, when the entire string travelled from Florida. Sebastian Merlos, who won the 1992 Gold Cup with Pite and the Black Bears, said: ‘The horses are now used to the grounds, which are different to those in the US. The surface there is faster but it doesn’t have as much grip as in England.’ Lechuza lacks a formal coach, but friends such as Santiago Araya haunt the team tent. ‘We watch videos and study our opponents’ play and horses,’ says Sebastian. ‘It helps to be playing as brothers. We support each other, and you can tell your brother anything.’
The best of the preliminaries included Azzurra’s extra-time league win over Ellerston Whites and Ellerston’s quarter-final win (with Carlos Gracida’s 60-yarder in the last 20 seconds) over Azzurra. The Broncos and Black Bears surprisingly failed to make the quarter-finals, while Australian-backed newcomer Elysian Fields played superbly to qualify. Lovelocks also did well in their new line-up, with Lolo Castagnola at the helm. The all-English Apes Hill Club Barbados had no shortage of supporters but performed disappointingly, never recovering from Mark Tomlinson’s injury. It’s difficult for British players to find jobs in 22-goal, and Apes Hill aside, just five British players were employed. Goal difference was crucial during the league stages, with the stronger teams vying for a place near the top of the table, ensuring, theoretically, an easier quarter-final, since the first-placed team played the eighth, the second the seventh, and so on. The quarterfinals bore out this system, with all but one of them decided by a wide margin. After the league stages, Lechuza and Azzurra were joint leaders, with a goal difference of 12, with Loro Piana a goal behind.
Pite Merlos broke his nose and officials stepped in to oversee the substitution as commentator Terry Hanlon asked if there were eligible players in the crowd 1 Sebastian Merlos controls the ball as Pite Merlos (far left) and Victor Vargas take out their opponents 2 Victor Vargas had a great Gold Cup 3 Snoopy in front of the Ruins
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Sotogrande
ALICE GIPPS; TONY RAMIREZ
Polo in southern Spain is getting bigger – both in number of spectators and media coverage, reports Juan Cruz Diaz Polo is experiencing such tremendous growth in southern Spain that it is becoming increasingly appealing to non-polo people. It’s already Europe’s main polo centre, with only Britain rivalling Sotogrande in terms of organisation and number of spectators, horses and teams. And it isn’t only polo that is growing in Spain: the area of Andalucia – often referred to as the Golf Coast and located between Malaga and the Rock of Gibraltar – is currently undergoing a bigger real estate and building boom than anywhere else in Europe. The well-organised and professionally managed Santa Maria Polo Club grabbed everyone’s attention this season. Held from 26 July to 31 August, the Sotogrande high goal season saw the Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup, the ABN AMRO Silver Cup and the Hackett Bronze Cup all at stake. Often referred to as the Triple Crown, the XXXVI Lexus Tournaments – which had a record 116 players distributed among 29 teams and mounted on over 1,000 ponies – have become a sports classic in Spain. This year also saw record media presence. Over 40,000 people gathered around the polo fields and, thanks to a deal struck by the Santa Maria Club, Eurosport broadcast the event in more than 19 different languages to over 50 countries, reaching over 100 million households and three million hotel rooms. Two specific games were also specially rebroadcast, reaching over 28 households. In addition, Sky Sports covered the tournament for the first time and four matches were specially rebroadcast. The event saw record applications for press accreditations, and three of Spain’s most traditional publications sponsored the event: El Mundo newspaper and women’s magazines Telva and ¡Hola!. Local media were also present, including La Bocha and Madrilenian Absolute magazines, as well as the new local edition of Polo Lifestyle. The Sotogrande estate opened in 1964 when Joseph McMicking, an American living in the Philippines, settled in the area and conceived the idea. A year later, his nephew Enrique Zobel founded the first polo field in Sotogrande, situated where the El Cucurucho Beach Club now stands. In 1967, the place gained momentum thanks to the holding of the Summer Polo Tournament. But it was in 1971 that the first Sotogrande Gold Cup was played, which was won by Casarejo Portales led by patron Pedro Domecq de la Riva. Today the list of winning teams is long and includes polo legends such as Villafranca, La Alicia, Geebung, Woodchester, Scapa, Las Monjitas, Talandracas and Loro Piana. Among those who have captured the gold and silver are players of the standing of Juan Carlos
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Other players who left with smiles on their faces were the members of the Loro Piana squad, who played in two different line-ups this season: Loro Piana Terranova and Loro Piana La Capilla Harriett Jr, Luis Lalor, Adolfo Cambiaso, Gonzalo Pieres, Alejandro Diaz Alberdi and the Heguys and Novillo Astradas, to name a few. Finally, historically-renowned patrons such as Alberto Moretti, Guido Boehi, Camilo Bautista, Alvaro Sainz de Vicuna, the Marquis of Artasona and Horacio Annunziata saw their championship dreams come true. As usual, the 2007 Sotogrande season was a real polo feast; the teams generally satisfied and achieving their goals. The first special mention goes to Gold Cup champion Ayala, led by patron Inigo Zobel, who played along with Argentinians Alejandro Muzzio and Santiago Laborde and Chilean Jose Donoso. Muzzio replaced David Stirling, who was injured during the British Gold Cup finals while playing for Loro Piana — which had ironically been defeated by Ayala in the Sotogrande finals by a narrow 13-12. Other players who left with smiles on their faces were the members of the Loro Piana squad, who actually played in two different line-ups this season: Loro Piana Terranova (Alfio Marchini, Mat Lodder, Juan Martin Nero and Martin Espain) and Loro
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Piana La Capilla (Celine Charloux, Augustin Nero, Jaime Huidobro and Lucas James). The former, led by Marchini, were awarded the Silver Cup (they won the Gold Cup last year) after losing in semi-finals to Loro Piana La Capilla, finishing as runners-up. Ahmibah, led by patron Bahar Jefri from Brunei, along with professional players George Meyrick, Pablo MacDonough and Gaston Urturi captured the subsidiary Gold Cup after beating Michael Redding’s Scapa. Another successful season at Sotogrande came to an end, once again delivering a vibrant display of the best polo in Continental Europe. The Sotogrande development keeps growing, and some people are thinking about calling it the Polo Coast...
1 Jose Donoso of Ayala surrounded by Augustin Nero (left) and Lucas James of Loro Piana 2 Jaime Huidobro on perfect form 3 Celine Charloux with son Alvaro Cruz and Jose Antonio Cadesna of the San Roque council
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Cartier International Antje Derks reports on the emotional Chile victory at this year’s Cartier International
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Audi England was captained by 7-goaler Luke Tomlinson, and joined by England stalwart Henry Brett (7), James Beim (6) and the 6-goaler Nacho Gonzalez – who made his Coronation Cup debut and looked after England’s back door. Off the field the great and glamorous gathered at the luncheon tents; most notably at the Chinawhite and Cartier marquees. Hollywood A-listers included Troy actress Diane Kruger and her partner Dawson’s Creek star Joshua Jackson while Sean Bean and Pierce Brosnan batted for the British film industry. And every year the after-parties seem to get bigger and better. The Players’ Marquee in association with Jack Kidd and events company Smyle hosted the UK band Shapeshifters, while the Chinawhite ‘Rock the Polo’ was packed with partygoers getting up close and personal and showered in gold, silver and red tickertape.
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ALICE GIPPS; POLOLINE
For once this summer it didn’t rain, and the 2007 Cartier International at Guards Polo Club was bathed in glorious sunshine. The change in meteorological fortunes resulted in a 20,000-strong crowd, which saw Chile beat England 9-8 for the Coronation Cup. This year’s international was in fact a memorial to Chile’s former captain, the late Gabriel Donoso, who tragically died last November after sustaining serious head injuries during a practice match. He was 46. Gabriel was a popular player throughout the world and led Chile to their last victory over England on International Day in 2004. Seven-goaler Jose Donoso took on his late brother’s role as captain and led the rest of the Chilean squad out onto Smith’s Lawn: Martin Zegers (6), his brother Jose ‘Cote’ Zegers (5) and the unstoppable 8-goaler Jaime Huidobro, who this year was the highest handicapped player on the field.
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During the match Chile received a goal on handicap but it was England’s Beim who scored the first field goal after being beautifully set up by Gonzalez. Another superb field goal from Brett put England in front at the start of the second chukka. But the lead was short-lived as Huidobro converted a penalty for Chile. By half-time the teams were level at four goals each. The crowd swarmed onto the field to tread-in. It was an heroic effort. The ground, although better than previous years, was still cut up due to the unseasonable amounts of precipitation. But once the spectators had finished, it once again resembled a billiard table. Unfortunately for England, they had a bad fourth chukka and everything fell apart thereafter. The Chileans made the most of it and were 8-5 ahead by the end. Huidobro scored goal after goal in a magnificent
display of open polo. According to Jose Donoso, Chile hadn’t changed their tactics: ‘We did nothing different, England had a bad chukka and we took the lead.’ The fifth chukka saw Tomlinson come off his horse and, after a tense period in which England’s official reserve Malcolm Borwick warmed up, he got back on again without much harm done. Despite a great goal from Gonzales, which saw England inch to within two goals of their opponents, another penalty in Chile’s favour saw them end the fifth chukka 9-6 in front. A miracle was needed by England at the start of the final chukka, and for a while it looked like they would get it after England’s man-of-the-match James Beim scored twice. But it was Chile’s day and for once I think the crowd didn’t mind. As Jose Donoso said afterwards: ‘I think Gabriel was watching and had a hand in our victory.’
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This year’s international was a memorial to Chile’s former captain, the late Gabriel Donoso, who tragically died last November during a practice match 6 1 Gabriel and Rebeca Donoso with son Jose, captain of the Chile team 2 Celebrity spectator Diane Kruger 3 The game was played in memory of Gabriel Donoso 4 MVP Jaime Huidobro and Henry Brett in the first chukka 5 Divotstomping to a marching tune 6 Prince Michael of Kent, who presented the trophy, watches with Cartier UK managing director Arnaud Bamberger
DVD ACTION
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Deauville Polo France’s Deauville Polo Club celebrates its centenary year but can it reclaim its prominence in Continental Europe, asks Herbert Spencer
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rarely rains on the Costa del Sol in August, but there is always late summer precipitation in Normandy. For years now Sotogrande has attracted far more teams than Deauville. Deauville donned a new look this year, not least with team patrons crossing the English Channel to capture both the high goal Gold Cup and the medium goal Silver Cup for the first time in many years. Englishman Mark Booth’s Wildmoor took the gold and Irishman Bryan Lynam’s Lamorlaye the silver. The big difference, however, was the way Deauville reorganised its polo in its centenary year under Ngoumou and former Argentinian 10-goaler Alfonso Pieres, the club’s new polo manager. ‘For one thing,’ say Ngoumou, ‘we played our matches later in the day, at five, to fit more with the life of the town, where most people spend the afternoon on the beach. Then we tried to make them friendlier for the public, opening the gates to all to overcome
any feeling of elitism, and putting in a tented village with good catering and shopping. We offered a cup every day of play, so every day was like a final. This seemed to work because we got record crowds throughout the season.’ Originally eight teams signed up for the Gold Cup, more than in previous years, but one patron died and another pulled out before the tournament began. Booth’s 19goal Wildmoor side went into the final seeming the underdogs – having lost an earlier match against their opponents, the 20-goal Marchiopolo team of Italian patron Gian Luigi Marchiorello. It was the second half before Wildmoor – with Argentinian 10-goaler Bautista Heguy, England’s Ed Hitchman and Australia’s Rob Archibald – got the advantage and went on to win 12-10. Heguy was named most valuable player. In the 12-goal Silver Cup final, the results were more predictable. Lamorlaye, patroned
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R&B PRESSE/P.RENAULDON
This is the centenary year for France’s Deauville Polo Club, and the question being asked is: will the Normandy club rise to reclaim its place on the summer high goal circuit as Continental Europe’s most important polo venue? Only time will tell, but club president JeanPaul Ngoumou is optimistic. ‘I think our centenary year was a success on many levels,’ says the polo-playing oilman from the Cameroon. ‘We did have some problems, but we will continue to work to solve them.’ One problem that Deauville may never solve, of course, is stiff competition from the Santa Maria Polo Club in Sotogrande, the Spanish venue that over the past decade or so has superseded the venerable French club as the most popular high goal centre on the Continent. The French and Spanish clubs play up to the same handicap level, 20 goal, and their seasons run concurrently in August. It
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by Lynam from Polo Wicklow in the Republic of Ireland, was a 12-goal side, against the 8-goal La Candelaria team of French patron Alain Clery. Lamorlaye won easily by 10-4. This year Deauville had players from nine countries, including the USA and India, competing on its three grounds in the middle of the resort’s racecourse. ‘Deauville is a small town, with polo just a few minutes from its centre,’ club president Ngoumou said. ‘Not everyone comes out to watch our matches, but after a hundred years of the sport here, if you walk into any bar or restaurant and say you’re a polo player, you get a special welcome. This is something you won’t find in many other places in the world.’ Ngoumou said the club’s future plans include building a new, modern stables complex, having already dismantled the dilapidated old stables and relying this year on temporary loose boxes. ‘And we’re sure to continue to get strong support from tourist authorities, the Lucien Barrière hotel and casinos group (a long-time sponsor of polo) and the people of Deauville.’ Whether or not all this will be enough for Deauville to regain its past glory – especially in light of competition from the still-growing polo scene in Spain – remains to be seen.
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Deauville welcomes local people and arranges match times to fit in with their lifestyle
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1 Bautista Heguy (in purple) competes against his cousin Eduardo in the final 2 Mark Booth 3 Centenary ‘Match of Legends’ left to right: Alfonso Pieres, Bautista Heguy, Tomas Goti, Faty Reynot-Blanco, the mayor of Deauville, Philippe Augier, Corine Colas of Hermès, Deauville president Jean-Paul Ngoumou, Ernesto Trotz, Edurado Heguy, Lucas Criado, Lionel Macaire.
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Medium and low goal Herbert Spencer rounds up the medium and low goal circuit and reports from the Victor Ludorum championships
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CENTAUR; POLOLINE; CLIVE BENNETT
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Until just 10 years ago, property developer Mark Booth, 45, didn’t even ride. Rugby was his game, but ‘I’d had too many injuries on the rugby pitch’. After learning to ride and play polo under Nick Williams at Inglesham Polo Club, he switched sports and devised a plan for an amateur career in this other ball game. ‘I decided from the start that I would take it slowly,’ he said, ‘progressing up the handicap levels in stages to see where this would lead.’ Booth’s plan is working to schedule, if the HPA’s points-based national championships for Victor Ludorum trophies are anything to go by. His Wildmoor team won the 8-goal Victor Ludorum in 2003, then the 12-goal last year. This season he stepped up a bracket to win the 15-goal Victor Ludorum with a massive 380 points – his nearest rival, Spencer McCarthy’s Emlor had 180. For good measure, Wildmoor also won in the 12goal division for the second year running; Wildmoor tallied 210 points and Norman Bellone’s Strathmore were runners-up with 180 points. The Wildmoor patron credited part of his success to keeping his team line-up constant within handicap requirements. ‘James Beim has been with the team for six years,’ he said, ‘and Rob Archibald for five, during which his handicap has gone from two to six goals. Rob is my polo manager and together we have a string of 34 ponies including some young ones we are bringing on.’ Booth deviated from his handicap progression plan in August to cross the Channel with a higher-handicapped Wildmoor to play for and win the 20-goal Gold Cup at Deauville. ‘I’m not ready to go into 22-goal in England next season,’ he said. ‘But we will play in high goal at the 18-goal level.’ The four Victor Ludorum championships reflected a continuing growth of low goal, medium goal and the second tier of high goal throughout the country. There were no fewer than 240 entries in a total of 22 qualifying tournaments at the various levels: four at 18 goals and six each at 15, 12 and 8 goals. Clubs hosting the tournaments were Cowdray Park, Guards, Cirencester Park, Royal County of Berkshire, Beaufort, Coworth Park and Cheshire, with some league matches played at other clubs as well. The 8-goal bracket had the greatest number of teams competing, a total of 124. The biggest tournament of all this season was the 8-goal Holden White at Cowdray Park Polo Club with a record 37 teams, surpassing even the 31 for the Archie David at Guards, which has historically been the largest polo competition in the world.
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The four Victor Ludorum championships reflected a continuing growth of low goal, medium goal and the second tier of high goal throughout the country. There were no fewer than 240 entries in a total of 22 qualifying tournaments at the various levels
1 Amateurs and brothers Raymond and Stephen Hutchinson (far left and right) and two professionals Martin Rodriguez and Michael House (right) win the Meyado Archie David 2 Tony Pidgley hauls the Empire Shield 3 Bridget Hanbury with her two sons Charlie (far left) of Longdole and George (in cast) of Lovelocks along with her grandson Tom Severn 4 Emlor’s Spencer McCarthy receives the Royal Windsor Cup from the Queen
Cowdray Park also had the most entries at the 12-goal level with 24 teams competing for its Dollar Cup. The Royal Windsor at Guards remained the most popular 15-goal contest with 25 teams. It was won by McCarthy’s Emlor to give them runners-up position in this Victor Ludorum bracket after Wildmoor. The 8-goal Victor Ludorum was won by Vampire Bats, the team of IT millionaire and adventurer Rory Sweet, with 360 points over 150 for Jayne Rumsey’s Carisbrooke. Vampire Bats won both the Holden White at Cowdray Park and the Julian & Howard Hipwood at the Berkshire, in action that was rather hotter than Sweet’s polar expeditions of recent years. In the 18-goal Victor Ludorum championships, retired player and HPA chairman Christopher Hanbury fielded not one but two teams in qualifying tournaments: Lovelocks with his elder son Charlie and Longdole with his younger son, George. Longdole won the bracket with 210 points and Lovelocks came third, behind 120 for Tony Pidgley’s Cadenza who won the Indian Empire Shield at Coworth Park. Unusually, non-playing patron Hanbury found himself in a win-win situation in the Cowdray Park Challenge, with his two teams facing one another in the final; Longdole won.
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European round-up
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Juan Cruz Diaz catches up on the best tournaments around the Continent
Sylt, Germany The 10th German Masters took place on the island of Sylt in northern Germany, as eight high goal teams and 200 polo ponies competed for the Sal. Oppenheim Gold Cup An impressive 15,000 visitors attended the games this year, booking up every hotel and apartment and, what with the good weather, a great atmosphere was created. The German Polo Masters is now the biggest polo event in the country and the biggest in Continental Europe after Sotogrande. Many players say the tournament is the climax of their polo season. Sylt also offers some of Germany’s best restaurants, famous nightclubs and bars and excellent shopping and long beaches. Apart from great matches, visitors were also entertained by stands selling Markus Tollmann paintings, Gucci and Prada sunglasses and handmade cars by German manufacturing company Wiesmann. Team sponsor Bentley showcased their latest models on the polo ground, while bouncy castles and entertainment groups kept the young children occupied. The polo matches were some of the roughest and fastest in German polo, thanks to a host of professionals like Hugo Ituraspe, Lucas Labat, Andrew Hine and Gaston Maiquez all pushing the competition to maximum levels.
The final match for the Sal. Oppenheim Gold Cup was between Lanson Champaign (German players) and GR.AN.DI.OS, whose players were Piero Diller, Lucas Labat, Martin Inchauspe and Thomas Rinderknecht. Lucas Labat in particular played incredibly well, hitting several unforgettable wide shots. The Winter brothers and Christian Badenhop of Lanson also played superbly well, but in the end, it was GR.AN.DI.OS who won. Sal. Oppenheim player Jo Schneider had an unfortunate accident that injured his neck, forcing him to stay in bed and unable to enjoy the final days of the event which he founded. But daughter Kiki had everything well in hand, having taken over the event’s organisation three years ago. Various celebrities also attended the tournament, including actor Heino Ferch, former Wimbledon champion Michael Stich and former footballer Uli Stein. National TV channels reported on the event, along with many newspapers and magazines.
La Varzea, Portugal La Varzea established the First Portuguese Open this summer, and their team won the Gold Cup, beating CFA 9-8. It was the third of the tournament series held at the renewed club. After a first chukka with La Varzea leading
Top Enthusiastic GR.AN.DI.OS fans wear their allegiance on their pink sleeves - and chests Above Martin Inchaupe (in pink) races clear of his opponent
HOLGER WIDERA
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Stockholm, Sweden On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the idyllic outskirts of Stockholm, a crowd of more than 3,000 saw the Jaeger-LeCoultre Almare Stäket team win the Scandinavian Polo Open, beating their finals opponent Buksza Polo Club from Poland. After two breathtaking and challenging first chukkas, the JaegerLeCoultre team took control of the game and finished with a comfortable 8-2 win. JaegerLeCoultre’s captain Johan Seth scored the final goal. Spectators also enjoyed the exclusive programme of this annual tournament, which included all the traditions associated with polo: an elegant hat contest, election of the best pony and charity fundraising auction in which the shirts of two players were auctioned for the World Childhood Foundation, founded and sponsored by the Queen of Sweden. Official sponsor JaegerLeCoultre also awarded the winning team the prize of a new Atmos clock personalised with the Scandinavian Polo Open logo.
A crowd of more than 3,000 gathered to watch the annual Scandanavian Polo Open and enjoy an exclusive programme of associated polo traditions like a hat contest and a charity fund-raising auction The day ended with a traditional Argentine-style asado (barbeque), and in the evening, the official Scandinavian Polo Open Party was held at Sturecompagniet, a famous nightclub in the centre of Stockholm. The 2008 Scandinavian Open will be held in late August next year and once again Jaeger-LeCoultre sponsors the event, based on the company’s three-year contract with commercial event partner AdCityMedia.
1 The victorious La Varzea team display their prize on home soil 2 A beautiful setting for the Scandinavian Polo Open on the outskirts of Stockholm
DANIEL OLSÉN
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2-1, Horacio Etcheverry were outstanding, scoring all his penalty shots to give CFA a 53 lead. CFA maintained the lead during the third chukka, but La Varzea came out stronger with some goals from Enrique Martelli and Enrique Zorrilla, to go into the last chukka with CFA leading 7-6. As Horacio Etcheverry scored a 40-yard penalty to give CFA a 8-6 lead, La Varzea demonstrated all their potential through Tiago Gallego Jr and Enrique Zorrilla, the two men who were in charge of securing the title for their team. In previous matches, Capial La-Trinidad claimed third place in a tough and exciting game that saw them beat Lusitania 9-8 with a golden goal by the field’s best player, Gerardo Mazinni. Lusitania’s Sebastian Harriott was replaced by Eduardo Zorrilla by the end of the first chukka. La Varzea Polo is the creation of Tiago Gallego (see page18). Tiago’s dream is to put La Varzea among the best polo clubs, and organise even bigger tournaments after the success of the first Portuguese Open. The Open consisted of three tournaments: the Bronze Cup, the Silver Cup and the Gold Cup. It was the first big event to be held at La Varzea’s newest fields, which were inaugurated last season. The main field has been seeded with tifton, and even though work has not been completed yet, it is obvious that the club is ready to organise big tournaments in both fields. The club wants to maintain the high level during all the season, by hiring many 4-6 goalers to play The tournament series saw many close games, mostly in the last and most important of them, the Gold Cup. All ended with a minimum one-goal difference, with everybody eager to win the €75,000 in prize money. The umpire was the highly respected Argentinian Matias Baibiene.
ALEX PHOTOGRAPHY
Adam Snow is a USPA Player Member rated at 9 goals and team member of the 2006 U.S. Open Polo Champions Las Monjitas.
The U.S. Polo Assocation is the governing body for the sport of polo committed to providing services to students, polo players and polo clubs around the country to ensure the quality of play at all levels. The powerful combination of horse and rider continues to embody breathtaking skill, fierce determination, gracious sportsmanship and above all, elegant ambiance unique to the world of equestrian sports. Join the dedicated men and women across the country by becoming a USPA member today.
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Find a polo club near you at www.uspolo.org
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MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
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Polo in Gstaad is played at the airport, with its breathtaking landscape, where a polo ground, stands and other facilities are set up every year
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Gstaad, Switzerland Sunny days, breathtaking landscape and good polo created the perfect ambiance for a word-class sports event in Gstaad. The games took place at Gstaad’s airport, where a polo ground, stands and other facilities are set up every year. Each match consists of four chukkas played in a reduced polo field sized about a quarter of Palermo’s Field One. However, in this particular case the small size was an advantage because players and ponies may be seen from a short distance, making the whole tournament even more exciting. The finals were played on a fantastic polo afternoon with Santiago Chavanne capturing the play and leading his Land Rover team to victory after beating Gstaad Palace 10-7. HSBC had previously defeated Nespresso 76?, clinching third place. Over 5,000 people went wild during the final match between Land Rover and Gstaad, in which six of the eight riders were Argentinian. An inspired Santiago Chavanne took control from the start until the very end, even though it was only during the second chukka that he was able to score the first of his six goals. Another Santiago – Marambio – really stood out for the losing team.
St Tropez, France A great final took place at St Tropez Polo Club on the Mediterranean coastline. With a superb performance by Dario Musso and Rommy Gianni, La Locura defeated Wasabi 9?-8 and captured the International Polo Cup, just as they did last year. HB Polo in turn won third place after beating St Tropez 9-8, and KP Polo obtained the subsidiary cup. The polo day started in the morning, when KP Polo won the Subsidiary Trophy after beating Technomarine 9-8, through a goal scored by Juan G Zabaleta in the last second. The match for third place was held in the afternoon, with HB Polo defeating St Tropez 9-8. By the third chukka, St Tropez led 4-3, and in the fourth, things were tied at 5-5 as
St Tropez scored some of the best goals of the day, courtesy of their best player, Santiago Irastorza. But even though things seemed easy for St Tropez, HB Polo recovered in the last chukka to finally claim third place. Then it was onto an exciting final. The first chukka was 2?-1 for La Locura. After a narrow 4?-3 second chukka, the winners took control of the match for the two following periods (6?-3 and 7?-5). Wasabi persevered and did not give up, but La Locura were solid, led by their most outstanding player, Argentinian Dario Musso. Dario injured his right ankle during the last chukka but kept playing anyway. Rommy Gianni, who was named MVP, gave La Locura the two final goals and the title once again.
1 Kirsty Craig and Philip Maeder at Gstaad 2 HT Polo save shoe leather - and their horses at Gstaad 3 Ricardo Portugal (Wasabi) and Goffredo Cutinelli (La Locura) in the final at St Tropez
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Florence Becky Simpson reports from Florence on the restaging of an historic 1869 polo match
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1 Mark Cann of the 9th Lancers and David Woodd of the 10th Hussars look towards umpire and FIP ambassador Dicky Hughes from Argentina 2 Action along the wall 3 Despite the heat members of both teams wore traditional shirts, ties and jerseys
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BECKY SIMPSON
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On a sunny day in June, a fanfare ‘fit for a king’ – certainly befitting those soon to engage in the ‘sport of kings’ – was performed when La Martina and its sister speical events company Polo Management Group welcomed to Florence two polo teams from the Lancers and Hussars British Army Regiment. Dressed in their regimental ties and blazers, the team entered the famous Pitti Uomo event – where the latest Italian fashion collections are showcased – and were soon engulfed by TV cameras and press vying for interviews. For these two famous regiments were responsible for bringing polo to the western world and playing it under modern rules. In the original game played on Hounslow Heath in 1869 they helped make polo what it is today. It was appropriate, therefore, that the historic match should be celebrated with such extravagance, and among the best of Italian society and the movers and shakers in the polo and fashion worlds. Commentary was provided by the champagne-drinking Lt Col Simon Ledger, who is known never to commentate without the obligatory glass of bubbly. And the umpire donned a traditional green velvet hunting jacket, the same style worn during the original Hounslow Heath game and which now forms the backbone of Lt Col Ledger’s semi-retired hunting wardrobe. Regiments gained special permission to bring their official flags, as well as the sheet music of their quick marches and what is thought to be the original polo ball used in the historic match. The latter was worryingly fragile, almost crumbling to the slightest touch, and entrusted (complete with an engraved plinth) to the author for evening. In a competitive game, and on a dusty field in heat reaching 30 degrees, the 9th Lancers joyously reversed the result of the original 1869 game and won against the 10th Hussars 4-2. The field was smaller than a traditional polo field, the game itself a cross between arena and grass polo. One length of the field was lined with an old terracotta wall, which the teams rebounded the ball off in a bid to catch out the opposition. The audience applauded, the ‘in the know’ polo people nodded with approval and the players gasped for refreshment. And refreshment duly arrived. The evening began with a sumptuous threecourse dinner followed by a ceremony where tournament trophies were presented to the players along with other goodies: kit bags from La Martina, bespoke regimental playing shirts and FIP medals from FIP’s first president Marcos Uranga.
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larger than life Herbert Spencer pays tribute to sportsman, war hero and polo legend Tommy Hitchcock
Historians may debate whether Adolfo Cambiaso, Juan Carlos Harriett or Tommy Hitchcock should be ranked as the greatest polo player of all time, but none could argue about the latter being by far the most prominent in the public eye, beyond the narrow confines of the sport itself. During World War II, when LieutenantColonel Thomas ‘Tommy’ Hitchcock Jr was killed testing a fighter plane in England, his death made the front page of The New York Times. Time magazine followed with a long and glowing eulogy titled ‘Centaur’. Tommy
was an Olympian, a larger-than-life allAmerican sporting and war hero, whose celebrity rivalled that of baseball’s Babe Ruth and golf’s Bobby Jones. Wealthy and socially prominent but without any pretensions, he epitomised the great amateur sportsmen of his era; so much so, that his friend F Scott Fitzgerald modelled characters in The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night upon him. Tommy Hitchcock was born in Aiken, South Carolina, on February 11, 1900, the son of Thomas and Louise Hitchcock of New York. The elder Hitchcock was a pioneer of American polo in the 19th century and was one of the country’s first 10-goal players. Tommy’s mother ‘Lulie’ was a formidable horsewoman and one of America’s first female polo players. She taught the game to a succession of future greats in Aiken and on Long Island. Son Tommy was riding at the age of three, learning polo at five and playing in his first tournament at 13. Then at 16 he won the US Polo Association’s Senior and Junior Championships. Then The Great War intervened. Unable to enlist at home because of his age but still determined, Tommy joined France’s famous Lafayette Escadrille – becoming its youngest ever pilot at 17. He downed two German planes before he was shot down behind enemy lines and captured. His escape involved jumping from a moving POW train and, under cover of darkness, trekking 80 miles through Germany to freedom in neutral Switzerland. His exploits earned him the French Croix de Guerre amongst other decorations. After the war Tommy went to Harvard and Oxford universities and began his polo career in earnest. By the age of 24 he had reached the sport’s maximum rating of 10 goals. During his polo career he won four Westchester Cup internationals, four US Open Championships, the equivalent Champions Cup in England, and was a silver medallist in the 1924 Paris Olympics. He become a successful Wall Street financier and retired from competing in polo tournaments in 1939. After America entered World War II, he was back in uniform and in the air. On April 19, 1944, near Salisbury, England, he was testing a new version of the P51 Mustang fighter, favoured escort of Allied bombers over occupied Europe, when his plane failed to pull out of a dive and he was killed. In 1990, the late Thomas Hitchcock Jr became the first player inducted into America’s then-new Polo Hall of Fame. Reminders of Tommy now grace the mantles of acclaimed players of this era: statuettes of him, known as ‘Tommies’ like Hollywood’s Oscars, are the glittering prizes for America’s annual Polo Excellence awards. A fitting tribute to one of the game’s true greats.
PAUL TERRY
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