It is exciting times for UAE Polo players and fans as the city of Abu Dhabi has confirmed it will host Coutts Polo at the Palace for the first time at the Emirates Palace on November 23 and 24.
The two-day event will take place on a custom-built polo field on the hotel's West Lawn and will be contested by teams from Buenos Aires, London and Milan as well as the UAE capital.
In a twist special ‘Palace Rules’ have been devised for the event to ensure fast and exciting matches on pitches a third smaller than regular polo fields. Games will be played between teams of three, with two points awarded for goals scored from outside a ‘D’ area marked on the playing surface. It all feels newfangled but will hopefully become the T20 version of Polo and will attract many new fans to the sport.
Matches will begin with what organisers have dubbed a ‘Palace dash’ with riders of the fastest horse from each side racing from opposite ends of the field towards a ball in its centre. It sounds that this start will be a really exciting moment and will potentially provide dangerous near misses.
Two matches will be played on each day with Team Abu Dhabi drawn to face Team London and Team Buenos Aires kicking off their campaign against Team Milan. The winners of those two matches will play each other in the final on the following day. It is great to have the draw out early.
Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the UAE Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, conducted this morning’s draw at the Emirates Palace alongside former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf.
“Hopefully this is the beginning of creating a centre for polo in Abu Dhabi,” Sheikh Nahyan said before adding that “through sport we can create a better world for everybody.”
Capacity for the event has been restricted to 1,000 to guarantee the best vantage point for spectators.
Hospitality packages starting from Dh1,750 per day are available for the event while General Admission tickets, priced Dh250 per day, go on sale from Emirates Palace on November 10.
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