British Polo Day

To the Tseleevo Golf and Polo Club out on the road to Dmitrov for a wonderful afternoon of polo. This was the first British Polo Day in Russia, and it was a spectacular occasion, which I trust will not be the last.

There were two matches, one between an Oxbridge side and the Tseleevo Club's own team, and one between a team of Old Etonions and the Moscow Polo Club. The Moscow team featured this very attractive lady, the acrtress Alena Chekhova, who galloped up and down the field with her pony tail flying out behind like Isadora Duncan's scarf, though happily without any unfortunate result. (My head was the only casualty of the day, courtesy of a river of Taittinger champagne followed by rather too much Macallan Fine Oak 15-year old malt. I managed to avoid adding the Beluga vodka to my list of sins, but I was sorely tempted!)

There is something appropriate about polo coming to Russia because the game originated with the Mongol army training its cavalry by riding their small (polo-type) ponies around a large expanse of grassland knocking skulls from one end to the other.