Great World Polo Blog

This Sunday, July 30th, 2006, is Cartier International Day at the Guards Polo Clubin England. In the main event, England will compete against New Zealand in the historic Coronation Cup. This annual event, now in its 22nd year, is attended by over 25,000 people and is the highlight of the polo and social calendar. The games will be played on the Smith Lawns in Windsor Great Park.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will once again be in attendance to watch the game and present the winning team with the coveted trophy.

The Coronation Cup teams are as follows: New Zealand: Simon Keyte, Cody Forsyth, JP Clarkin, and Tommy Wilson. The reserve is Craig Wilson, Coach Glen Gilmore from Australia, and manager Roddy Wood. England: James Biem, Mark Tomlinson, Henry Brett, Luke Tomlinson. Coach John Horswell, and manager Andrew Tucker.

This will be the fourth time that these two nations have met in this competition and the score currently stands at 2-1 to England. The Coronation Cup was first contested as an International Match in 1951 and 1953 and yearly since 1971.

Gibson Guitar is the main sponsor of the New Zealand polo team. The American-based guitar company has sponsored the winning, visiting teams (Chile and Australia) for the last two Cartier International events.

The morning match, for the Golden Jubilee Trophy, features a Hurlingham team in action against a Prince of Wales four. HRH Prince Harry has been a crucial member of the latter team for the past three years.