Rashid Al Habtoor is commitment personified. Following his impressive debut in the UK high-goal scene in 2009, he tells Tom Urquhart why he is returning to Guards
Rashid relives a Queen's Cup league match with Sumaya's Ahmad Aboughazale and Milo Fernandez Araujo
and financially, and it takes a special kind of individual, a special kind of dedication, to decide to become a patron of a new high-goal team and take on some of the most established names in the business. “For me it was never about the glory, or the glamour, it was about making a commitment to the game that has given me so much,” explains Rashid Al Habtoor, Chairman of the Habtoor Polo Association, and one of the most dynamic young patrons in the global game today. “Yes it is expensive, and that is what everyone always wants to talk about, but you can’t put a price on a life experience like polo. Some people spend lots of money on big boats, but for me polo is everything.”
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Dubai-based businessman Rashid started playing polo 20 years ago. Not only did his passion for the game start then, but so did an alliance between the Habtoor family name and international polo that would span several continents within two decades. After learning the game in Dubai, Rashid and his brother Mohammed, with the constant encouragement of their father Khalaf, have ensured that the Habtoor colours have become a regular sight on polo fields in Spain, France, Austria, Lebanon, Argentina, Australia and the UK. In addition, Habtoor Polo has an impressive international support team headed by polo manager Justo Del Carril, who has been managing the team’s polo affairs since 2000.
It was this team that extensively planned and launched their debut season on
Generation Game
the high-goal circuit in the UK last year. “Justo and I had many, many meetings before we announced our high-goal intentions because we had to look at every single detail of the team, but for both of us the most important thing was the horses,” explains Rashid. “There is no point in getting involved unless you are well mounted and we needed players who were well mounted in the UK. That’s why we went for Piki [Alberdi], Alejandro [Muzzio] and Nacho [Gonzalez]. They all had access to good, experienced horses there, and for me that is imperative if you are to make an impression in high-goal. He added: “Horses with high-goal experience are priceless and if you have the ability to buy them you will save yourself time. The big problem last year was, in fact, mounting me. We had to look at so many, but finally we got eight by the end of The Queen’s Cup, and the good news is that I still have them for this year’s campaign, and they are better than ever.” Investment in the minor details of the team last year paid dividends as the team stormed to the quarter-finals of The Harcourt Development’s Queens Cup in their first year. It is an unprecedented achievement that caught many off guard, and gave Rashid a huge sense of pride. “Nobody believed it…there was a real surprise of how well prepared we were, and how well we did,” he recalls. “It was the greatest polo experience of my life to date. To be on the same pitch as some of the great players, that feeling of achievement,
70 | GUARDS POLO CLUB OFFICIAL YEARBOOK 2010
port, in general, demands dedication to succeed at the highest level. But in the sport of polo it doesn’t just demand it…it is a prerequisite. There are fewer sports that can be more challenging, both physically
The
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