Horse sense, colt craze

Polo is going beyond high-society hubbub, but how far can it go?

Polo gets more coverage in newspapers on Page 3 than the sports page. So you know who hobnobbed with whom, as the horses/riders went hoofing around the polo field.

And if a famous artist turns up to draw on the side of a horse, so much the better for the shutterbugs.

This brush with all things royal and equine is all very good. But something happened while you were looking at the pictures to see just how gracefully Sharmila Tagore and Maharani Gayatri Devi, both regulars, were ageing: a reverse charge.

Polo in India has started transforming itself into a sport!

Corporates are pumping in the money and finding unique ways to gain from the exposure. Apart from the royal houses of Pataudi, Jaipur and many others, corporate bigwigs like Naveen Jindal and Vijay Mallya have always been fans of the game, and that has helped win sponsorship.

The Jindal group has been associated with the sport for quite some time now, while UB group's Kingfisher launched a team of its own.

Says Girish Shah, head, marketing, Kingfisher Airlines, "Polo as a sport, worldwide and also in India, is associated with an upmarket and premium audience following, and as a result sees several premium international brands associate themselves with it."

He's talking about brands like Tag Heuer, Swarovski, Chivas Regal, Oberoi Hotels and Reid & Taylor. Oberoi, for example, has its own team and sponsors events at various levels. Reid & Taylor has been sponsoring the Indian Polo Championship for four years now.

About three years back, sponsorships for polo tournaments were in the range of about Rs 20 lakh. But the figure is close to Rs 50 lakh now. It is, of course, a peculiar game, depending as it does on horses as much as human players. A single polo horse could cost as much as Rs 10 lakh.

But, still, is that enough? Is there enough competitive fervour in the game to sustain interest? Will it ever win appointment viewing on television?

Some are sceptical. "Corporate interest will be there, but if one expects it to reach the masses as well," says a renowned polo player, "it is not going to happen."

Others too put the probability low of polo turning into a national craze, but admit that it is not impossible.

Crowd interest could possibly come about, but only if the game generates a talking point of some sort, something that could grip the public imagination "" in an enduring sense.

As of now, the word "polo" reminds Indians at large mostly of the Ralph Lauren shirt found in Aishwarya Rai's mail along with an envelope of Euro bills.