History of Argentine Polo



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  Julieta Fraguío 09/10/2017

Polo has more than 2,500 years of history, making it one of the oldest sports in the world. Its origin was around 2000 BC. British settlers discovered this discipline during their trips to India, where they fell in love with this team game and imported it to Europe. At the end of the 19th century, English immigrants, mostly landowners, came to our lands and found horses and men with the necessary characteristics to play it and start this sport, which today has become an Argentine representation.


The first polo game is calculated to have been played in Argentina around 1875. The British since their arrival were looking for players to confront regardless of the location. Although polo was originally for the English aristocratic players who lived in the estates of the province of Buenos Aires, more and more over the years, more clubs appeared, as was the case of the current renowned Hurlingham Club, founded in 1888 by the English Campbell, Fortune, Ravenscroft and Robson. Who years later would win the first Argentine Polo Open Championship. During this period, polo had an important growth and in 1921 the Argentine Polo Federation was created, which gave rise to the sport starting to develop throughout the country, integrating more and more players born in the country.




Little by little, some local teams were invited to participate in European tournaments and the performance of the Argentines generated surprise on the old continent due to the skill of the riders and the power of the horses. However, the real surprise came when Argentina was the winner of the 1924 Olympics, against the two world powers: the United States and the United Kingdom. Upon their return, the players were acclaimed across the country and Argentine polo earned worldwide recognition!


Polo was an Olympic discipline on five occasions (1900, 1908, 1920, 1924 and 1936) and the Argentines won the gold medal in their two participations (1924 and 1936). In addition, the first World Cup was held in Buenos Aires in 1987. Argentina began to have great supremacy in the game and an excellent level that led to the development of the three most prestigious tournaments in the world in the country: Open Hurlingham, Tortugas and Palermo, known as the Triple Crown of the Argentine Polo.




All the history and the construction of great results made Argentina today have eight of the nine players with the highest handicap in the world: Mariano Aguerre, Alberto Pedro Heguy, Juan Martín Nero, Gonzalo Pieres, Facundo Pieres, Juan C. Harriot , Pablo Mac Donough and Adolfo Cambiaso, who is considered the best polo player in history. In addition to the skill of the riders, the success of Argentine polo is due to the outstanding quality of its horses, which are the result of a controlled process of crossing, selection and breeding between the Pura Sangre breed, recognized worldwide for its speed and field mongrel horse.


If you would like to learn to play polo, have a class or go see a game, then contact us.









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