POLO AT THE PALACE, ABU DHABI
Few have been as instrumental in transforming the game’s image as Rory Heron.
Like Figueras, the chief executive of City Events, which staged the recent Abu Dhabi tournament with Coutts, has been working hard to make the sport of kings accessible to as many people as possible.
Two years ago Heron revived Hurlingham Park’s status as a London inner-city polo field for the first time since the 1930s. It now attracts 30,000 fans to Polo in the Park, the biggest audience for polo in Europe.
And with the game’s newfound popularity, the borough authority, Hammersmith & Fulham Council, launched an initiative offering free lessons to state school pupils. Victoria Grace, of the Ascot Park academy behind the lessons, describes it as “cheaper than five-a-side football”.
“In London, we have completely opened up the game to a new audience,” says Heron. “Here in the UAE, it is much more select.”
Hence, the sponsors of the Emirates Palace polo weekend, where the hotel provides a stunning backdrop to a lush playing field sown with rye and meadow grass, veer toward the high end, from the Queen’s bankers Coutts, to Maserati and watch manufacturers Hublot.
To give spectators more of a level playing field of appreciation, Maserati invites a group of novices – myself included – to a polo experience day led by instructors from Dubai Polo Academy, who promise to teach us in an hour what it normally takes three weeks to learn.
“Forget you are on a horse,” barks our tutor Steve Thompson. “This is not a riding lesson. The horse is there just to enable you to play.”
All very well but when I find myself bouncing uncomfortably on top of Tattoo – even those who have never ridden a horse before are expected to canter and gallop in our hour-long lesson – it is all I can do to stay in the saddle, let alone think about swinging a polo stick without doing myself or my horse grievous bodily harm.
First though, we are taught the basics of stick and balling (practising hitting the ball with a mallet) on terra firma. Once we are used to the pendulum action of the stick and the motion necessary to hit the ball, we are ready to meet our horses.
Putting the theory into practice is one thing while standing on a grassy lawn; trying to remember the sequence of strokes and safety rules is another when your horse is charging along at 35 miles an hour.
I find myself misjudging the lunging action necessary to hit the tiny ball with a stick which doesn’t seem quite long enough and more than once, nearly catapult myself over my horse’s head.
It gives me a newfound respect for the skills, dedication and training needed for the gruelling sport, made to seem effortless by the teams taking part in Polo at the Palace.
But like Ascot, the Dubai World Cup and other equestrian events, half the fun of polo championships is to turn out in your finery, to see and be seen, and to enjoy the ambience of a sunshine-filled day out at the ground.
Inner-city schools might be getting a taste of the game, and the likes of Figueras might be keen to democratise it but polo is still associated with luxury and a certain kind of lavish lifestyle – and that will take some time to shake off entirely.
According to Umberto Cini, a former showjumper and the overseas director for Maserati, fast cars and horses belong to the same exclusive club.
“They give an aura of a glamorous lifestyle,” he says. “Both are about performance, style and access to another world.”