RIYADH, 16 April 2006 — The Blue Team, led by Mohammad Riaz of India, won the Mercedes-Benz Cup in the first-ever official arena polo match in the Kingdom.
The Blues trounced the White Team 7-3 in what turned out to be a tame performance on the part of the latter, which went down fighting against the more experienced Blues.
The event, held at the International Equestrian School ground in the Malaz district, had an element of novelty in more senses than one. The polo players represented a broad cross-section of nationalities from Britain, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, India and Palestine, while the spectators were mostly British and Irish, besides a sprinkling of other expatriates.
The referee here was a woman, unlike all the sporting events in the Kingdom that invariably have males for performing such duties. Prince Naif Al-Shalan, a veteran international polo player, was the chief guest.
A total of four matches were played, each event of five-minute duration. Between each match and the succeeding one the horses were given a brief respite to allow a tractor to level up the sandy track.
The Blue Team set the pace of the match by homing in the first goal within ten seconds of the start of the play. They followed it up with a second goal before they recessed to allow the tractor back on the track. Despite the overall domination of the game by the Blues, the Whites, led by Bruce Cowley, did manage to score three goals in a display of horsepower and riding skills.
Prince Al-Shalan presented the Mercedes-Benz Cup to the captain of the Blue Team, while each member of the two teams received medals to the applause from the spectators. Besides Mohammad Riaz, the captain, other recipients of the prizes from the Blue Team were Sean Moran from the Republic of Ireland and Hashim Al-Alawi of Saudi Arabia.
Prize winners from the White Team included Bruce Cowley from Britain (captain), Essam Sbitha (Palestine) and Omar Al-Mualliem (Saudi Arabia).
Later, in a joint interview with Arab News, Bruce Cowley, a founding member of the Riyadh Polo Club, and Adnan Al-Baitony, Saudi Olympic polo player, thanked Juffali Automotive Co., the agent for Mercedes-Benz in the Kingdom, for sponsoring the event. They also paid tributes to Custodian of the Two Mosques King Abdullah, Prince Naif Al-Shalan and Prince Saud Al-Shalan for their constant support to the equestrian sport. “Without their encouragement, this sport would not have come thus far,” he observed.
“There will be another polo match here in the near future, while we are also trying to arrange a field polo event at a later date,” he said, adding that efforts are under way to get polo registered as an official sport in the Kingdom.
Adnan said one of the factors for the White Team losing out to the Blues was the fact that the former did not have experienced and fast horses vis-à-vis the endurance of their counterpart from the rivals.
Asked about the prospect of popularizing the sport in the Kingdom, Bruce said that polo is both a dangerous and costly sport and needs supervision of experts. “In the West, companies usually sponsor this event as part of their image-building exercise. The expenses incurred on such sponsorships are taken into account in income tax assessment.”
Speaking from a historical perspective, Prince Al-Shalan, who plays polo in England, Argentina and Switzerland, pointed out that this particular sport originated from the Arabian Peninsula, from where it spread to Iran. “The Persians used to play polo with the severed heads of the enemies killed in battle to strike fear among them and forewarn others. From Iran, it caught the fancy of the Maharajas (princes) of India before the British as the colonial power took the game to their country. Later, it reached Argentina, who have produced the finest polo players in the world.”
Paying tributes to the sponsors of the event, Prince Al-Shalan said it represents part of the initiative to reintroduce the sport in the land of its birth. However, it is not easy to maintain as it costs a minimum of one million pound sterling in European countries toward the upkeep of the horses and other paraphernalia. For this reason, it needs the support of sponsors to make it sustainable.
He added that in the Kingdom a viable option for staging polo events is by organizing arena polo which is relatively less expensive than field polo, which needs more horses and grass court, both of which jack up the operational expenses.
