Guards Polo Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Guards Polo Club is a polo club associated with the British Royal Family, based at Smiths Lawn, in Windsor Great Park, near Windsor Castle, England. The Duke of Edinburgh has been President of the club since its formation in 1955. The name derives from the Guards Division of the British Army. Guards officers are exempt from the playing members' entrance fee, which is £15,000 as of 2007.
The club has ten polo pitches on 130 acres (53 hectares) at Smiths Lawn, and stables, paddocks and training facilities four miles away at Flemish Farm. It claims on its website to have the largest membership of any polo club in Europe, and is one of the four polo clubs in the United Kingdom that stage elite high-goal tournaments, the others being the Cirencester Park, Cowdray Park and Royal Berkshire Polo Club. The most prestigious day on the Guards Club's calendar is the Hurlingham Polo Association's International Day (currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Cartier International), which is part of the British social calendar, and attracts crowds of over 20,000 people. The club's main official tournaments are the Queen's Cup (high goal), Royal Windsor (medium goal) and the Archie David (low goal), all of which take place in June.
