Here’s to proper, pukka polo
● While gin may be the ubiquitous social quencher, polo seems to be the social circuit prize — so much so that many of this equine pastime’s invites are little more than plumped-up excuses for shlebs to slip on their glad rags and schmooze in the sun.
But one polo outing takes the sport seriously.
Now in its third year, the African Polo Open is a continental affair, with our local horseback-mounted guys (and sometimes gals) pitted against other African polo-playing countries in this part of the world’s grandest polo tournament.
Escorted in a golf cart to the front of the marquee overlooking the Rosefield Club polo fields in Centurion, Gauteng, last Sunday morning, I am welcomed by the couple behind the affair: Masedi and Kgomotso Molosiwa.
The story goes that Masedi had long been drawn to this most elegant of sporting pursuits when a meeting with polo patron and player Mustapha Fasinro a few years ago inspired him.
“Mustapha was the first polo player who looks like me that I met in person. Meeting him added a new dimension to a sport that I had fallen in love with,” Masedi tells me.
Mustapha, a Nigerian oil baron who owns eight polo ponies, was but one of several high net worth guests who came to watch SA take on Zambia.
Then there was the diplomatic set, including sprightly Kenyan high commissioner Jean Njeri Kamau and Gabon ambassador Andre William Anguile, who came with his partner, Beverlyn Basson.
I greet Bonnke Shipalana, who heads up The Communications Firm, and meet African Bank’s exuberant Babalwa Teka, who tells me that being OTT comes with her name. “All Babalwas are fabulous,” she says. “If there is a Babalwa who doesn’t meet the criteria, you disqualify them.”
We shared welcome platters of morsels from the four corners of the continent, and our mains of an impeccably deboned chicken paired with morogo and gizzard isifashi (a Zambian peanut sauce) were a nice nod to the jousting teams.
And as for the match? Officially opened by
Princess Tirelo Molotlegi, it was nail-bitingly close, but SA, led by captain Leroux Hendriks, pipped the Zambians by one point to take home the Zaria trophy.