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TEXT BY CARLO VANZINI PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHARLIE DAILEY
ROYAL

RIDING:

SNOW

POLO

“The sport of kings and the king of sports”: this is how polo One can only imagine the difficulty, given their oscillating
has long been known as. But to really tell the story of such gait, of hitting a ball measuring 8 centimeters (3 inches) in di-
a distinctive sport, we have to go back to its origins. So, let’s ameter and getting it between the opposing team’s goal posts.
take a journey back in history, in this case all the way back to Moving further east into India, where the British “dis-
2,600 years ago. covered” the sport and exported it to Europe, we would
Polo was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1936, during find people playing polo on elephants. But there is no point
which time both the United Kingdom and Argentina won four in arguing: the elegance of a horse and its rider cannot be
gold medals each. Like most sports at the Olympics, polo orig- matched. And if to the horses’ majestic stride we add the
inates in military maneuvers: the movements of hitting the snow-blanketed slopes of scenic settings like St. Moritz, the
ball with the mallet are actually quite similar to a horseman charm and beauty of snow polo become truly irresistible.
swinging a saber in battle. The first recorded polo matches It was a group of British soldiers who first brought polo to St.
date back to 600 BC, give or take. Persians and Turkomans Moritz at the turn of the 20 century, where they built the first
th
played each other on the “field” in a region of Asia that was polo field and imported several new additions that became in-
anything but peaceful. A little further southwest from there, corporated into the game over the years. The St. Moritz Polo
in the opulent United Arab Emirates, the game is still played Club was created in 1969 and has never stopped galloping af-
today in the presence of emirs and sheiks, sometimes on cam- ter a ball since. Reto Gaudenzi, skier, hotel entrepreneur, and
els, creatures we know from pictures but don’t see every day. “godfather of polo”, with five gold medals from St. Moritz,

Protagonist Sport 5