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