An icy white field, supreme equine athletes and some of the world’s best horsemen are poised to bring spectators to the edge of their seats this month at the Fortune Heights Snow Polo World Cup 2017. Six teams from six continents will compete at the Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club in northeastern China, six years after the inaugural tournament.
Endorsed by the Federation of International Polo (FIP), the event has grown every year since 2011 and today is one of the largest on the global equestrian calendar. “This is the only snow polo event in the world that fields national teams selected and approved by their country’s official governing bodies,” says FIP president Nicholas Colquhoun-Denvers in our Winter 2016-2017 feature on the tournament.
Teams from Argentina, Australia, England, South Africa and the USA will be aiming to dethrone Hong Kong China, which took home the trophy last year after narrowly beating England 5-4 in the final.
“I think it’s going to be a very evenly contested competition,” says Derek Reid, Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club’s director of polo operations. “Our Hong Kong China team is always up there in the money. England and Argentina are good; USA are always in the mix as well. Then we’ve got Australia, South Africa. It’ll be very interesting to see how these games pan out.”
Let the tournament begin …
The Fortunate Heights Snow Polo World Cup 2017 takes place from 17-22 January (with a rest day on 20 January) at the Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club, Tianjin, China.
Dorte Tuladhar: A Scandinavian artist in the saddle
Danish fine-art photographer Dorte Tuladhar focuses on horses in much of her work, presenting anything but a conventional take on her subjects. The images are occasionally so blurred, and the compositions often cropped so closely, that the result is an abstraction. In other images, manipulated colour or textural qualities take the reins.
Golden Polo Horses, Tuladhar’s exhibit of eight abstract images encrusted with 23.75-carat gold, will be on show during the Fortune Heights Snow Polo World Cup this month. “I visited Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club last June and photographed the horses both in action and standing still,” says Tuladhar. “These photos make up the basis of my art at the exhibition during the tournament. What’s unique about this particular exhibition is that real gold has been implemented into the artworks.”
Tuladhar has ridden horses since she was a child, and says they have always played an important part in her life. “Being with horses and riding them has given me renewed energy and joy. It really does something good for my inner soul to spend time with these beautiful, strong and powerful animals. It was only natural that the horse would become the focus in all my work.”
Tuladhar’s Golden Polo Horses exhibition can be viewed between 1pm and 5pm from 17-22 January at the 2/F, VIP Complex Building, South Polo Field, Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club, Tianjin, China.
*Hong Kong China (red) and England compete in last year’s Fortune Heights Snow Polo World Cup final, with the team from Asia taking the title
Photo courtesy of Tianjin Goldin Metropolitan Polo Club