I

n the 1990s and the early part of the last decade there was a triumvirate of polo patrons who dominated the UK high- goal scene. They were Kerry Packer and his Ellerston

team, Hubert Perrodo with Labegorce and Urs Schwarzenbach and his Black Bears. Between them they won every high-goal trophy in the UK and more, and produced some great polo that rivalled anything to be seen in Argentina. Sadly Urs is the only surviving member of that great trio and although he has now handed over the reins of the Black Bears team to his son Guy, he remains as passionate and involved in the sport as ever. However it is thanks to his wife, Francesca, that Schwarzenbach took up polo at all. In 1982 he decided to purchase some rural properties in his wife’s native Australia. “Polo was really the only equestrian sport in Australia then and as mustering sheep was not for me it made sense to take up polo,” he said. Back then polo in Australia was dominated by that other great polo patron, Kerry Packer, but Schwarzenbach reveals that his arrival on the polo scene was welcomed. “Kerry and I had the best polo grounds in the country and competition is only ever good if you have competition.” Packer may well have regretted welcoming Schwarzenbach as he built up an impressive polo operation at Garangula Polo Club in New South Wales. “Ginger Hunt knew a horseman from Queensland, Rowan George, who was a groom for [Maple Leafs patron] Galen Weston. I interviewed him in 1987 and employed him as my polo manager at Garangula. The aim was to have about half a dozen horses, but I think we started with 30!” Three years later Urs won the Australian Open, playing alongside Memo Gracida, Paul Hunt and Mike Todd. This competition had started rather eventfully for both teams as Kerry Packer had suffered a heart attack in the

first chukka of their first game. “No one in the Ellerston team had a mobile phone so I called the ambulance,” recalled Schwarzenbach. “Fortunately an ambulance was returning to its base and picked up the call and diverted to the club and saved his life.”

“The aim was to have about half a dozen horses, but I think we started with 30!”

Although Schwarzenbach got on well with Packer, “Kerry was a friend but he had his own interests and we didn’t have much in common apart from playing polo and making money”; Schwarzenbach developed a much closer bond with fellow patron Hubert Perrodo. “I met Hubert in 1988 or ’89 in France and he was a soul mate of mine. Hubert loved sailing, skiing and mountaineering as well as polo and that’s what I love. Hubert came to stay at my house in Sydney for Packer’s memorial service and he is the last entry in the guestbook as two or three months later he died.” In fact, Schwarzenbach wrote a moving

tribute to his friend in the 2008 Guards Polo Club Yearbook. Schwarzenbach’s first experience of polo in the UK was equally by chance. “Nicky Hahn lived opposite me in Shiplake and his professional, Ginger Hunt put me on a black horse and I stick and balled for a minute or two until I landed on the ground. I was so upset that I bought the horse!” Surprisingly today, despite a trophy cabinet full of polo silverware, including two British Opens and two Queen’s Cups, none of these victories stand out. “I cannot remember the tournaments that I have won,” he explained. “It’s the ones that I didn’t win that stand out in my mind, like the Deauville Gold Cup and the US Open. I tried twice to win the Open and finally, since my accident,

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