Two sides to Argentina
Dressing gaucho-style in Patagonia
PHOTOGRAPHY PHILIP LEE HARVEY
PART ONE: BUENOS AIRES
Two horses with clipped manes thunder from the shadow of a tall building, cast across a perfect lawn. Galloping flank to flank, their mahogany coats gleam with sweat in the spring Buenos Aires sunshine. Gripping tightly with their knees as they raise mallets aloft, the riders descend on the ball like cavalrymen charging into battle. With a deft flick of the hand, leaning at an angle so acute he seems almost certain to fall, one of the players sends it sailing through the air.
A tango dancer in La Boca – a historic blue-collar district of Buenos Aires.
The Campo Argentino de Polo in the Palermo district, nicknamed the ‘cathedral of polo’, is where the sport’s most prestigious tournament, the Argentine Open, takes place. This stadium is to polo players what Wembley is to footballers and rock stars. But for some, the show doesn’t really begin until the day’s final game has been played, and the spectators descend on the champagne bars and hospitality tents lining a long promenade between two grounds. Essentially a catwalk, at dusk it fills with polo groupies – deeply tanned women showing off new boob jobs vie for attention with leggy off-duty models hired to promote the event’s sponsors by striding about in branded t-shirts, matching hotpants and towering platform shoes. Men mostly sport floppy mid-length hair, Ralph Lauren shirts and blazers, and leather loafers. The trouser-of-choice for both sexes is a pair of tight white jeans: proudly announcing the wearer’s invariably tiny bottom.
A player for the Chapaleufú polo team swings into action in a game against Ellerstina at the Campo Argentino de Polo in Buenos Aires
It is a look made famous by the cover of Jilly Cooper’s racy novel, Polo, and the wealthy set she fictionalised is much in evidence here. Polo is a pursuit for the very, very rich. In a single game one player uses around eight ponies, and the best are phenomenally expensive – selling for up to £100,000. Add to this the cost of transporting your stable and grooms along the annual global polo circuit (Britain and continental Europe during the northern hemisphere spring and summer, then on to Argentina and Palm Beach in the US), and you get a feel for the eye-watering sums involved.
Carolina Beresford in her element
Carolina Beresford is an insider in this world. She works for the polo news website PoloLine, and is waiting, mic in hand, to interview players from the winning team, Alegría. A striking Chilean-Irish redhead, she has lived in Argentina for seven years and comes from a family of polo players – her uncle, Gabriel Donoso, was Chile’s greatest ever, although he was flatally injured in a match. ‘It’s an incredibly dangerous game – and an incredibly difficult one,’ she tells me. ‘Winning is more down to the horses than the players, but managing them is a real skill – it’s so fast, and you’re relying on a living creature; a horse is not like a car, they’re unpredictable. Players spend more time with their horses than with their wives… and I’m not kidding.’
A groom for the Chapaleufú team
In Argentina, polo isn’t entirely the exclusive sport it is the UK – anyone can turn up at the stadium and buy an inexpensive ticket for the stands, where people keep cool with beer and ice creams, and hold aloft homemade banners for their favourite teams. ‘Here, the top players are magazine cover stars, and taxi drivers know their names,’ she says. ‘It’s not like England, where it’s a more niche sport, associated with elitism and snobbery.’ Argentines are the undisputed kings of polo – claiming seven out of the eight players in the world with the top handicap of 10 goals – but the reason they’re so good is a simple one, says Carolina. ‘In Argentina, the access to horses is above anywhere else. In the countryside kids finish school and get straight on a horse; they live and breathe that life.’
Spectators fnd some shade