Cartier International
WORDS BY DIANA BUTLER & PICTURES BY IMAGES OF POLO
TANGTASTICCHINA
Members of the Guards team head out to Beijing to help create the first Cartier International China Polo Challenge 2012 at Tang Polo Club
The Cartier topiary ponies look ready for a game. C
artier is famous across the world for its elegant and sophisticated polo days. Now the latest country to take up the powerful
and passionate game of polo is also home to the newest Cartier polo event – the Cartier International China Polo Challenge 2012. Held at Shilai Liu’s Tang Polo Club in Beijing, this four-day, 12-goal tournament combined the very best of the modern game with China’s fantastic polo heritage, which dates back some 2000 years.
As in Dubai, key members of the team at Guards Polo Club, headed by CEO Neil Hobday and Tournament Director James Turner, whom some Cartier guests mistook for Leonardo Di Caprio, brought their renowned attention to detail, the signature of any polo event at Smith’s Lawn, to Beijing. This created a tournament unseen previously in China. Working closely with Peter Wood and his team at Tang, this memorable Cartier event came wonderfully to life over a week in October.
For anyone who has been a Cartier guest at Smith’s Lawn, many things would have been familiar: red carpet, Cartier topiary arch, fabulous food and superb prizes. Yet this China event was unique as these Cartier traits were blended with some unusual and, for the Guards team, sometimes unexpected additions, such as the extended half-time on finals day to allow the umpires – Peter Wright and Roddy Matthews – to pose for photographs with a stream of Cartier’s fabulously flamboyantly dressed guests and the prayer ceremony on the first day of marquee building, asking the gods for good weather.
Despite being so far from Windsor Great Park, there were plenty of familiar faces to spur everyone on. As Equus & Co’s joint patron, Aron Harilela recalls: “Trekking north from Hong Kong to be met by such familiar faces from Smith’s Lawn some 8,000 kilometres away from the UK was a great experience. Playing
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against each other in the afternoons and then sitting together for dinner in the evenings, eating Beijing delicacies and some not so delicate alcohols, just made the camaraderie stronger. A super trip, with better friends at the end of it.” Winning Cartier patron Adriano Agosti, whose team defeated Nan Liu and Top Raksriaksorn’s Tang Polo squad 8-6 in a thrilling final to win the inaugural Cartier Trophy, was reminded of China’s early history in polo. “Following on from China’s 2000 years of culture around horses, this first Cartier event created an enthusiastic crowd and I believe polo will grow very quickly here,” he said before heading back to Switzerland, accompanied by his wife Lauri. The professionals for this tournament were a mixture of Argentines and English. The South Americans were regarded as
Guards CEO Neil Hobday on the Great Wall of China.
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