Are there too many golfers for your liking out on the course?
Never fear. If the current trend sport has you bored even before it has taken off, the weary elite will soon have a new game to play as polo is returning to Russia.
Compared to golf, which requires a spare $20,000 a year to play on the only full-size course in the country, polo is more expensive and comes with a guarantee that even fewer will ever play the game.
After all, right now there is not a single Russian in the country who is able to join in when the first chukker since the Russian Revolution is played Saturday at the opening of the Moscow Polo Club.
The return of polo is the dream of Peruvian-born U.S. businessman Victor Huaco, a long-time horseman and polo player who after 11 years in Russia decided that as "there was nowhere to play I had to start my own club."
An exhibition match with foreign polo stars will herald the opening of the club, which eventually hopes to create a Russian team and a children's school and hold tournaments every season.
With each horse costing up to $50,000, plus upkeep, and each player needing several horses, the game instantly becomes one for the very rich. The only concession at the tournament, where tickets will cost 500 rubles and up, will be a wooden horse where people can try swinging a mallet from the saddle for themselves.
Twenty-five Argentine polo ponies have been imported for the club, along with the former trainer of the sultan of Brunei. Among the guests for the game of the raj and royal families of the world will be Yuvraj Shivraj Singh 3, the maharajah of Jodhpur, who learned his polo skills at Eton.
Polo is a fast, physical team game played on a grass field the length of three soccer pitches. Two teams of four players each play six seven-minute chukkers, attempting to knock a small ball made out of willow into their goal. The speed and physicality of the game means that each player can use six or seven horses in a game.
Before the Revolution, polo was a game for the higher echelons of the Russian military and aristocracy. The tsar's family came to the game through its close relations with the English royal family, and the first-ever game took place at Peterhof on June 10, 1884, with the trophy for the winning team awarded by Tsar Alexander II's wife.
Current members of the British royal family, including Prince Charles and his two sons, are keen players. When asked if Prince William would be coming, Huaco said, "Not yet."
President Vladimir Putin has been invited to the tournament and he has written a letter of support.
There will be one Russian on the team, although she doesn't live here anymore. Vladlena Belolipskaia Bernadoni, who left Russia in 1992 and now calls England home, plays for the Royal Berkshire team and her own team, Vladi. She has played in tournaments on the stylish polo circuit of St. Moritz and St. Tropez, where other rich Russians have also picked up the game.
Belolipskaia Bernadoni, who runs her own stable in Berkshire, looks after the horses of one other Russian who plays the game and knows of a few more who have played. Oil baron-turned-soccer baron Roman Abramovich has even had a go, according to a Guardian report.
Despite the lack of players, Belolipskaia Bernadoni is confident that Russia will soon be a major polo nation.
"In a short time we will have big success," she said. "Russia will reach the level of Argentina."
The game, with such sponsors as Mercury, the luxury goods importer, is unashamedly marketed at the rich, with the word "elite" being used much more than "chukker" at a press conference last week.
"It is an interesting game for the high life and for the political and business elite," said Alexander Gafin, vice president of Alfa Bank, which has sponsored the tournament to the tune of $60,000 as well as helping with the marketing.
The arrival of polo is part of the continuing process of Russia becoming a Western country, Gafin said. "Russia has become civilized, where you can play golf and polo, while not forgetting lapti and gorodki [traditional Russian games]."
Polo has spread to more than 80 countries. Poland preceded Russia by recently holding its first polo game since 1939.
As well as the polo field, Huaco, who founded the Rambler.ru Internet service, is behind plans to build a huge complex at Nikolina Gora that is eventually to have a golf course and hotel.
Saturday's game starts at 2 p.m. at Gorki-10. Tickets can be bought from www. parter.ru
Since the weather forecast is for rain, the game will be played in an indoor riding arena, Huaco said.
Never fear. If the current trend sport has you bored even before it has taken off, the weary elite will soon have a new game to play as polo is returning to Russia.
Compared to golf, which requires a spare $20,000 a year to play on the only full-size course in the country, polo is more expensive and comes with a guarantee that even fewer will ever play the game.
After all, right now there is not a single Russian in the country who is able to join in when the first chukker since the Russian Revolution is played Saturday at the opening of the Moscow Polo Club.
The return of polo is the dream of Peruvian-born U.S. businessman Victor Huaco, a long-time horseman and polo player who after 11 years in Russia decided that as "there was nowhere to play I had to start my own club."
An exhibition match with foreign polo stars will herald the opening of the club, which eventually hopes to create a Russian team and a children's school and hold tournaments every season.
With each horse costing up to $50,000, plus upkeep, and each player needing several horses, the game instantly becomes one for the very rich. The only concession at the tournament, where tickets will cost 500 rubles and up, will be a wooden horse where people can try swinging a mallet from the saddle for themselves.
Twenty-five Argentine polo ponies have been imported for the club, along with the former trainer of the sultan of Brunei. Among the guests for the game of the raj and royal families of the world will be Yuvraj Shivraj Singh 3, the maharajah of Jodhpur, who learned his polo skills at Eton.
Polo is a fast, physical team game played on a grass field the length of three soccer pitches. Two teams of four players each play six seven-minute chukkers, attempting to knock a small ball made out of willow into their goal. The speed and physicality of the game means that each player can use six or seven horses in a game.
Before the Revolution, polo was a game for the higher echelons of the Russian military and aristocracy. The tsar's family came to the game through its close relations with the English royal family, and the first-ever game took place at Peterhof on June 10, 1884, with the trophy for the winning team awarded by Tsar Alexander II's wife.
Current members of the British royal family, including Prince Charles and his two sons, are keen players. When asked if Prince William would be coming, Huaco said, "Not yet."
President Vladimir Putin has been invited to the tournament and he has written a letter of support.
There will be one Russian on the team, although she doesn't live here anymore. Vladlena Belolipskaia Bernadoni, who left Russia in 1992 and now calls England home, plays for the Royal Berkshire team and her own team, Vladi. She has played in tournaments on the stylish polo circuit of St. Moritz and St. Tropez, where other rich Russians have also picked up the game.
Belolipskaia Bernadoni, who runs her own stable in Berkshire, looks after the horses of one other Russian who plays the game and knows of a few more who have played. Oil baron-turned-soccer baron Roman Abramovich has even had a go, according to a Guardian report.
Despite the lack of players, Belolipskaia Bernadoni is confident that Russia will soon be a major polo nation.
"In a short time we will have big success," she said. "Russia will reach the level of Argentina."
The game, with such sponsors as Mercury, the luxury goods importer, is unashamedly marketed at the rich, with the word "elite" being used much more than "chukker" at a press conference last week.
"It is an interesting game for the high life and for the political and business elite," said Alexander Gafin, vice president of Alfa Bank, which has sponsored the tournament to the tune of $60,000 as well as helping with the marketing.
The arrival of polo is part of the continuing process of Russia becoming a Western country, Gafin said. "Russia has become civilized, where you can play golf and polo, while not forgetting lapti and gorodki [traditional Russian games]."
Polo has spread to more than 80 countries. Poland preceded Russia by recently holding its first polo game since 1939.
As well as the polo field, Huaco, who founded the Rambler.ru Internet service, is behind plans to build a huge complex at Nikolina Gora that is eventually to have a golf course and hotel.
Saturday's game starts at 2 p.m. at Gorki-10. Tickets can be bought from www. parter.ru
Since the weather forecast is for rain, the game will be played in an indoor riding arena, Huaco said.
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