The St. Regis International test match went ahead in Cowdray this weekend. The English side welcomed a team called ‘South America’, although with 4 Argentinians in the lineup ‘Argentina’ might have been more fitting. The match was off to a … Continue reading
Author Archives: Andrea Massaro
Cortina Winter Polo Audi Gold Cup 2013
As the snow polo season draws to a close with St. Moritz, Aspen, Megève, Tianjin and many other snow polo tournaments around the world already finalised, one of the oldest and most prestigious snow polo events has yet to begin – The Cortina Winter Polo Audi Gold Cup will take place from February 17 to 23 February in Fiames, district of Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Back in 1989 four friends – Italo Focacci, Fabrizio Bogiankino, Corrado
Cortina Winter Polo Cup in Italy
Pantanella all from Rome – and Renato Manaigo of Cortina, decided it was time to bring polo to the Dolomites. They first chose Lake Landro, between Cortina and Dobbiaco but later decided to move the tournament to Lake Misurina. The tournament became an annual occasion, went from strength to strength and is now considered one of the most important events in the snow polo season calendar.
Traditionally, the tournament is played on the frozen surface of Lake Misurina, but this year, due to the ice not reaching its required thickness the games have had to be moved to Fiames about a 20 kilometre drive away. Not ideal, but in the end a much better solution than cancelling the tournament all together as was the consequence of the lake of St. Moritz not reaching its required level of thickness in 2012.
This year 5 teams employing more than 100 horses between them will take part in the tournament and Cortina Cup veterans like Luca d’Orazio (participated continuously for the last 11 years and 5-time winner), Dario Musso and Rommy Giannni will saddle up once again, so it’s shaping up to be a pretty exciting event.
The full list of teams and players:
Audi Polo Team:
1 cap. Davide Nanni hp. 1 ITA
2 Paolo Santambrogio hp. 3 ITA
3 David Bernal hp. 7 ARG
4 Fabrizio Bulgarini hp. 3 ITA
HOTEL DE LA POSTE POLO TEAM:
1 cap. Gif Turati hp. 1 ITA
2 Diego White hp. 8 ARG
3 Oscar Carona hp. 3 ITA
4 Franco Piazza hp. 3 ITA
JOHN TAYLOR-MONTECARLO POLO TEAM:
1 cap. Rommy Gianni hp. 2 ITA
2 Luca E. D’Orazio hp. 2 ITA
3 Dario Musso hp. 7 ARG
4 Juan Cruz Greguoli hp. 5 ARG
U.S. POLO ASSN. POLO TEAM:
1 cap. Richard Fagan hp. 2 IRL
2 Marcus Hancock hp. 3 UK
3 Marcus Arraya hp. 7 ARG
4 Santiago Torreguitar hp. 4 ESP
RUINART POLO TEAM:
1 cap. Davide Dondena hp. 1 ITA
2 Horacio Etcheverry hp. 7 ARG
3 Luis Neuforge hp. 4 GER
4 Teodoro Neuforge hp. 2 GER
Pictures from St. Moritz World Cup Polo on Snow 2013
Gallery
More than 12,000 polo aficionados braved the cold and showed up for the 29th edition of World Cup Polo on Snow in St. Moritz last week. The Polo Blog was there and managed to snap a couple of pictures of … Continue reading
The History of Snow Polo
St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow starts next week and as a warm-up Polo+10 in Germany has looked at the history of snow polo and put together a chronological list of polo snow events.
Even though polo has been played for thousands of years, the first ever recorded snow polo match only took place a little more than 25 years ago. It all started in St. Moritz where a small group of crazy polo enthusiasts got
Fin del Mundo Snow Polo Cup in Ushuaia in Argentina
the idea to play on the frozen lake. Today, over a quarter of a century later, the St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow is not only one of the most prestigious polo tournaments in the world, but snow polo has become one of the most popular kinds of polo there is.
Each year new snow polo events are announced in different parts of the world. Four years after the first polo match in St. Moritz in 1985 Cortina Winter Polo in Italy followed suit. Then Polo Masters, Megève in France, and in 2000 the World Snow Polo Championship in Aspen USA. Since then, the trend really accelerated with a new polo snow polo tournament being announced nearly every year in different parts of the world like China Snow Polo World Cup in Tianjin/China – the first snow polo event in Asia.
For the full chronological list of snow polo tournaments since the first in 1985 see the list on Polo+10 by clicking here.
The Polo Blog is now on Pinterest
Hello fellow polo lover!
Since we spend a lot of our time snapping pictures of ‘polo in motion’ and sharing them on this site we thought it would be a really great idea to join Pinterest, where we can share more pictures and create galleries using other people’s photos.
Have a look at some of our first boards on Pinterest by clicking on the links below:
Great Polo Players from around the World
Amazing Polo Grounds from around the World
We plan to add more players and polo fields to our existing boards, so let us know who you would like to add, either by adding your comments below or on Pinterest. And if you have got a great idea for a board let us know about that too!
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