POLO ON THE FRONTIER Mongolia
Article by Nick Wills
‘Going, Going, Gone to the Gentleman on Table 9!’ Perhaps it was a moment of madness, or simple curiosity, but I had somehow bid on an 11 day polo adventure to Mongolia. When it was all over, it would become one of the biggest adventures I had ever undertaken.
Four weeks later, I was on a plane with an old school friend embarking on the long journey to Central Asia, London, Moscow and finally Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, an ex- Soviet metropolis in the centre of a vast tundra wilderness. An emerging economy laden with natural resources and striving for a position on the Global stage, ‘UB’ (as it’s known to the locals) is the capital of a young burgeoning democracy offering startling contrasts: yaks pulling carts and Humvee motorcades alongside traditional craftwork and Louis Vuitton megastores.
As we left the capital on our unravelling polo odyssey we entered a rural landscape with no private land ownership and with one of the world’s lowest population density. A predominantly nomadic population battling bitter eight- month Siberian winters in a sparse open wilderness shared with 15 million horses (13:1 human ratio).
After an eight-hour drive we arrived (having covered 300 kilometres) at our 20-plus ger (traditional round felt tent) camp, erected in extended format for 2010 to host the international contingent of the Genghis Khan International Polo Nadaam. The Frontier Polo Club, an evolving brainchild of Christopher Giercke and Ham legend the late Jim Edwards,
welcomes visitors for three months of the year in an eco-tourism camp nestled on an ancient rocky outcrop above the Orkhon River in a lush valley amidst Genghis Khan’s imperial heartland.
In the middle of Mongolia, 60km from the nearest tarmac road and 300km from the nearest city with any semblance of modern infrastructure, the Genghis Khan Polo and Riding Club was ambitiously setting out to host a six team international polo tournament with players drawn from Asia and Europe, as well as across Mongolia.
It was a world class event. Players wanted for nothing, from brand new team shirts, international umpires and bright Asian-inspired tournament banners - all contrasting against a vast grassland plain that is unchanged since Attila the Hun’s ancestors and the later famed Khan dynasty rode across it.
The guest list represented a smorgasbord of polo players and personalities who hailed from France to Australia, Nepal to Singapore with handicaps ranging from +2 to -2. The extravaganza would be separated into three tournament days comprising - as well as a mostly bare- back horse race across the steppes for children under 12, archery and wrestling - a low goal mixed tournament in
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Photos: Andrew Rowat
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