Category Archives: Polo Holidays

Cortina Winter Polo Audi Gold Cup 2013

Posted on by

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 Snow Polo

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

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 story behind the unfinished Polo Stadium in Sicily

Gallery

Posted on by
The polo stadium in Giarre in Sicily

This gallery contains 4 photos.

Being avid polo lovers we always try to combine trips abroad with different polo matches around the world, and when a trip earlier this year took us to the beautiful island of Sicily, we were not expecting to experience anything … Continue reading →

The first ever Polo Open in Copenhagen to take place the summer of 2013

Posted on by

If you – like us – are already looking forward to next summer’s polo events (in the northern hemisphere, that is!) you’ll be pleased to know that, as of next year there will be an additional candidate when planning your polo holiday abroad. From the country that recently gave us “The Killing”, “The Bridge”,  and “Borgen”, the first ever Polo Open in Copenhagen is due to take place on the 21st and 22nd of June at ‘Fælledparken’ in the Northern part of Copenhagen.

So far Mat Lodder (4-goaler) and Ryan Pemble (5-goaler) have been confirmed to take part; both prominent polo players with a long list of international polo silverware between them, including prestigious Gold Cup and Queens Cup wins. With two skilled players like that already part of the line-up, Copenhagen Polo Open promises to be a thrilling event quite capable in rivalling the recent crime TV series export.

Surprised that the horse-loving nation of Denmark has not hosted any Polo Opens before? So were we! A country not without equestrian pedigree ought to have their own annual polo open, so it’s about time something was arranged. This is definitely a contender for our summer holiday plans next year!

Tickets have yet to go on sale, but should become available towards the end of the year. The best way to stay updated is by going to the official Facebook page where all new announcements will be posted by the organisers.