Charity

Whether it’s protecting the black rhino in Africa or benefiting children, over one million pounds was raised at polo charity events in the UK this summer. Herbert Spencer looks at what makes polo and charities the perfect match

Above (from left) The Queen, Colonel Paul Belcher and Basil Al-Ghalayini, President of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which raises funds for Middle East charities, at one of three polo matches the Queen attended this summer

If the ancient Persians had not devised the game of polo in the first centuries BC, some clever 21st century AD charities promoter might well have thought it up. Polo is, after all, a perfect pursuit around which to organise fund-raising events. Pound for pound, it provides a cost-effective way to bring in money to benefit good causes.

Philanthropy, both corporate and individual, is often about image. It is also about what one might call the ‘feel-good factor’, as giving punters a good time encourages generosity. As a sport with a high social profile, polo is ideally placed to attract both corporate sponsors and wellheeled guests. Beautiful settings, exciting sport and lavish hospitality are the recipe for a good time indeed.

Most important, of course, is keeping down the costs of fund-raising events in order to maximise the net proceeds. This is where polo scores over other charity balls in central London where the costs of venues, catering, entertainment and the like can cut into the profits that accrue to the charity. By contrast, polo clubs provide venues either for free or for minimal fees, and polo players, from amateurs who own teams to the world’s top professionals, donate their time and talents to provide the ‘entertainment’ –exhibition matches – around which the charity events are staged. The players themselves also donate to the auctions held at the events: the chance to play a match with the world’s greatest player at his Argentine club and also take home one of his ponies for good measure, for example. Stand back and watch the bidding skyrocket.

At one time virtually all the highestnetting polo charity events were based on what the late Major Ronald Ferguson, the Prince of Wales’s long-time polo manager, irreverently termed ‘rent-a-royal’. When Prince Charles was playing in a tournament or exhibition match, corporate sponsors would pay as much as £50,000 to associate their names with the event and see their executives and clients shaking hands with the heir to the throne. During his long playing career, Charles’s polo helped raise tens of millions of pounds for a wide variety of good causes, from his Prince’s Trust to protecting the black rhino in Africa.

In 2004, Charles’s last season as a player, he and sons William and Harry helped raise £940,000 for 28 charities. This year, however, with only Prince William playing a limited number of exhibitions, there were fewer occasions in which royal connections made the events a success.

Benefitting the British Armed Forces at Sandhurst: (from left) John Goodman, John Paul Clarkin, the Stanford Group’s Jack Staley, international opera singer and British Forces Foundation trustee Katherine Jenkins, Major General Peter Pearson, Nina Clarkin and Prince William

A nationwide review of ‘chukkas for charity’ indicates that well over a million pounds was raised at polo in the UK this summer, despite weeks of atrocious weather that forced cancellation of some fund-raising events. Surprisingly, it was smaller clubs rather than larger ones that did best in the charity league tables.

Ham Polo Club was by far the champion

fund-raiser for 2007 in terms of the number of events, benefited charities and the net proceeds accruing to them. Over the summer season it staged close to a dozen charity days that netted £384,000 for some 15 good causes at both home and abroad. The total take was more than double that of any other club, large or small.

Club chairman Nicholas ColquhounDenvers admits that geography plays a part in Ham’s success. Nestled between popular Richmond Park and historic Ham House, a tourist attraction on the banks of the River Thames, Ham is London’s only remaining polo club. ‘It helps a lot to have such a large catchment area,’ he says. But the club’s policy of holding as many charity events as is feasible is what makes the difference.

Ham’s most successful charity day was its annual event in aid of ChildLine,netting £110,000.The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children,of which the charity is now a part,says this is ChildLine’s largest single source of income. Another Ham event,the Chakravarty Cup,for which Prince William played in an exhibition match,brought in £100,000 for charitites in the UK and Africa.

The world’s leading player,Argentinian 10-goaler Adolfo Cambiaso,was much in evidence at Ham charity events – as was his Dubai team patron,Ali Albwardy,who is also the club’s president.In one event supported by sponsor Jaeger-LeCoultre,Adolfo donated a pony which was auctioned for £15,o00, helping to raise £69,000 for the Argentine children’s charity Ideas del Sur.

Another Argentine charity,Fundación Pro Alvear,organised by its polo-playing president Juan Pepa of Citigroup in London, raised £11,000.It was one of the London club’s most glamorous days,with 600 guests including model Claudia Schiffer,and the restaurant Cipriani and nightspot Cuckoo Club also involved.

Second to Ham in the fund-raising stakes is Beaufort Polo Club,whose three charity days this summer brought in £190,000.The Gloucestershire club’s biggest event,in aid of St James’s Place Foundation for children with special needs,raised £75,000.The three charity events at Cirencester Park Polo Club this year brought in £110,000.Its top fundraiser,featuring Prince William in an exhibition match,raised £50,000 for good causes nominated by the prince.

Hurtwood Park Polo Club is usually one of the top charity earners with its owner, drummer Kenney Jones,staging crowddrawing pop concerts with exhibition matches.Unfortunately the weather forced cancellation of some events this year,so the club held only three charity days,raising a total of £100,000.Cowdray Park Polo Club’s day to benefit Breast Cancer was also cancelled,but it had local charities on hand at both the Veuve Clicquot Gold Cup final and the England v South America test match.Only a few thousand pounds were donated,but the events served to raise the charities’ profiles.

At the small Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Polo Club (RMASPC),a unique ‘hands across the seas’ charity event has been an annual pilgrimage for American team patrons John Goodman and Tim Gannon,both winners of the US Open Championship,who fly over to donate their time and money as players.The US-based Stanford Financial Group also supports the event.This year,according to organiser Mark Cann,the Sandhurst charity day netted £85,000 of which £35,000 went to the British Forces Foundation that entertains British forces serving overseas.The rest went to supporting polo at Sandhurst and in the armed services.

Another fund-raiser with overseas connections was the annual Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) day at Guards Polo Club,one of just a handful of Guards events attended by the Queen.The GCC day, which raised £70,000 for charities in the Middle East and Pakistan,was the only Guards charity event in 2007,although it does play a major role as host club and organiser in the Cartier International Day, the Hurlingham Polo Association’s flagship event.Most of the HPA’s profits from the day go into its Polo Charity Trust,and is upwards of £100,000 annually.

Polo in the UK has clearly shown itself to be a ‘caring sport’, fund-raising for scores of diverse charities at home and overseas, but what about caring for its own? Not a single club in the country reported any fund-raiser for polo players in need.

Lord Patrick Beresford, retired 5-goal player and former team-mate of the Duke of Edinburgh, has been lobbying the HPA to support the foundation of a new charity that will benefit those players in the sport who need help because of injury or illness. ‘The polo world was extremely generous a few years ago in raising money to support Andrew Seavill (a player paralysed in a road accident), but what happens next time?’ questions Beresford, who is also a former chef d’equipe of the British equestrian team. ‘We should build up a fund for players, professional and amateur alike, and include grooms as well, who need financial support, rather like racing’s Injured Jockeys Fund or the Polo Players Support Group (PPSG) in the United States.’

The US polo charity was founded in 2001 following a successful fund-raising campaign for Rob Walton, the 7-goal American player left paralysed by a polo accident in Malaysia. According to Dave Offen, director of the PPSG, the charity has raised $1.5m since its inception, through individual tax-deductible donations of up to $20,000 as well as fund-raising events at various clubs around the country. PPSG lists all kinds of individuals helped by its financial support: from a 3-goal player injured in a road accident while transporting ponies, to a groom seriously wounded in a stabbing incident. Thus far in 2007 the charity has paid out $130,000 in assistance grants, with $50,000 held in reserve for the rest of the year.

Beresford believes his idea for a polospecific charity like the one the Americans have has ‘fallen on deaf ears’. Apparently the HPA’s view is that its Polo Charity Trust serves the purpose. This trust, however, largely funds youth programmes and military polo and makes only smaller donations to players in need.

‘I think the existing trust’s remit is too broad for effective player support,’ argues Beresford. ‘If I were donating £1,000 specifically for helping players or grooms,’ he adds, ‘I would not be happy knowing that part of my contribution might be used for things like funding polo in the Pony Clubs or the military.’

Beresford hopes the HPA might have a rethink. ‘Not all polo and polo-related families are well-to-do,’ he says. ‘There are bound to be occasions when those less welloff will need support and the sport should be geared up to help them.’

1 Claire Milford Haven with Adolfo Cambiaso at Ham for the Ideas del Sur charity 2 Bautista Heguy and Juan Pepa (right) at Ham’s Fundación Pro Alvear event 3 Referees Nicolas Talamoni and Peter McCormack share a joke with a model Inga carrying a Meli Melo bag as Patrick Teroerde (far left) and Alexander Nix look onto the crowds at Ham’s Fundación Pro Alvearevent