It’s hugely entertaining, being played on a smaller pitch
than grass polo and with only three players per team
instead of four. The ball is also bigger, somewhere between
a baseball and a football, and filled with air so that it’s
possible to send it sailing over players’ heads or even to
juggle it with the mallet on a solo run. At the end of the
day, team Richard Mille captures the St. Regis Snow Polo
World Championship, defeating the 2016 winners Flexjet
6-5 in a closely fought contest. Let the festivities begin!
Er... Continue!My goodwill towards the municipality is confirmed when I
wander into Explore Booksellers, which displays second-
hand books in a cavernous two-storey Victorian building,
and ask for one on geology whose title and author both
elude me. “That’ll be Annals of the Former World by John
McPhee,” says the genial whitebeard behind the counter
after I describe the volume, unaware he’s just made an
Aspen advocate of me.
That night, there’s a St. Regis Midnight Supper at the
resort’s Eleven Madison Park restaurant, named for the
address of the original St. Regis in New York, though it
takes place a little earlier than midnight as the polo players
in attendance have the small matter of a world
championship to deal with the next day. And in fitting
tribute to the sport’s Central Asian roots, the reception for
the dinner is held in yurts specially erected for the event in
the courtyard.
The day of the snow polo final dawns bright and sunny.
I make my way to the polo field at Rio Grande Park, where
a commentator is warning people to step back when the
polo ponies charge by as “a polo stick wrapped round your
neck is not a good look”. Opposite, next to the John Denver
Sanctuary, stands the vip pavilion, where I initially take
up position and avail myself of canapés, beverages, pastries
and other tasty comestibles. Nacho Figueras, the world’s
most famous polo player, is here, but he’s not mounted
today, his team having been eliminated in the
preliminaries. But it’s a strain watching the sport from the
pavilion as it’s positioned so that you’re squinting into the
sun, so I cross the tracks to the cheap seats ‒ well, patch of
snow ‒ and enjoy the spectacle from there.
#prestigetravel | JULY 2019 PRESTIGE 193