The birth of the Westchester Cup

It was a chance comment after a polo match in 1884 at Hurlingham, writes Nigel à Brassard, that led to the establishment of one of polo’s most prestigious tournaments

In the spring of 1886, the American Nathaniel Griswold Lorillard, son of a US thoroughbred racehorse owner, watched a game of polo at the Hurlingham Club. After dinner, he told the English players that the sport was also played in America and suggested Hurlingham send a team to Newport to play a series of matches against the Westchester Polo Club. The English players agreed – on condition the Americans offer a cup and share the travelling expenses of the visiting team and its ponies.

Lorillard sent a cable to Frank Gray Griswold, Westchester’s secretary, informing him of the conversation. He replied that all expenses would be met and the club would commission a cup to be emblematic of the first polo championship between the two countries. The members of the Westchester Polo Club donated the necessary funds and Tiffany & Co of New York was commissioned to make a trophy.

A London silversmith was later to describe the cup as depicting ‘six figures of polo players, mounted, springing therefrom, the whole being surmounted by a massive three-handled egg-shaped cup, with three panels on it. The first panel contains the inscription “International Polo Challenge Cup, presented by the Westchester Polo Club, USA”, the second bears the arms of England and America, while the third is a representation of a couple of players passing each other in opposite directions. The players are Captain Brocklehurst and Captain Herbert as depicted in George Earl’s picture of a polo match between the Royal Horse Guards and the Monmouthshire Club that was decided at Hurlingham on 7 July 1877. The cup is said to have cost $1,200, or £240.’ The Tiffany & Co archives show the cup was made from 396.3oz of sterling and the manufacturing cost was $840.

In August 1886, a Hurlingham team captained by John Watson travelled to Newport, Rhode Island to play the Americans. Thomas Hitchcock, who had played for Oxford University, was chosen to lead the very best American players that made up the Westchester side. The games attracted huge crowds and local newspapers commented on ‘the great applause’ for the English team that showed ‘there was a large body of friends from the old country’.

The first game, played on 25 August, was won by Hurlingham 10-4. The visitors, with a score of 15-2, also won the second match, played on 28 August. The games were all played in tremendous sporting spirit, prompting John Watson to state:

Opposite page Westchester players in 1886 This page, from left The cup, in 1921, being taken under police protection to Buckingham Palace, where it was presented by King George V to the American polo team; the Westchester Cup depicting six figures of polo players

‘I have played polo in all parts of the world and I never met fairer or better intending opponents.’

The games were a great sporting and social success. The Americans concluded they needed to learn the backhand stroke used so effectively by Watson and the team-play exhibited by the Englishmen. One American who had watched the games, Cochran Sanford, felt ‘the military sabre drill of the Englishmen comes in good play in polo. They use the mallet with the same ferociously wicked sweep with which they would have slashed down the Egyptian rebels in the Sudan campaign.’ He concluded: ‘We can never bring back the cup until we meet the Hurlingham players at their own system.’

The Field reported that ‘the American genius for assimilating knowledge may enable the Westchester polo players to correct their play, When the Hurlingham team set sail for home, they did not take the real cup with them as it had not yet been completed. Tiffany’s records show the hollow-ware blueprints were entered into the ledger in October 1886 and the trophy manufactured on 17 January 1887.

The Field noted sagely in 1886 that: ‘The Westchester Club is determined to come next season and endeavour to recapture the thousand-dollar cup. If they do, they will probably discover for themselves the difficulties of bringing polo ponies across the Atlantic, getting them fit for play, and playing to win on a foreign ground.’ No doubt as a result of these difficulties, it was to be 14 years after the English victory in Newport before a team of American players, captained by Mr Foxhall Keene, had a return match.

and learn how to turn defeat into victory. In any case, they will receive a hearty welcome at Hurlingham whenever they come to do battle with their old rivals.’ It also noted that the American hosts lavishly entertained the English team. Newport – ‘the luxurious summer retreat of New York society, where all that is politest and most cultivated and most exclusive in the Empire gravitates’ – made a very agreeable location for the games. The Americans extended lavish hospitality to their guests, and the bijou palaces – which, with mock modesty, were called ‘cottages’ in Newport – of the Lorillards, Griswolds, Belmonts and Keenes were kept open day and night to offer hospitality to the visitors. The Englishmen stayed at the Ocean House Hotel, where they were described as the ‘cynosure of neighbouring eyes’.