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TO N Y R A M I R E Z / I M A G E S O F P O LO. C O M , G E T T Y I M A G E S
Opposite:
Prince Philip
at the Audi International
Polo at Guards Polo
Club, 2012
This page
:
Prince Philip swaps
his pony for a bicycle
at Windsor Park Polo
Club, 1964
T H E R E A R E N O T M A N Y E N G L I S H A M AT E U R S
WH O S E N A ME C A N B E F O U N D O N T H E G O L D
C U P T H R E E T I ME S
Guards Polo Club are fortunate enough to
have had Prince Philip as an ever-active
president since polo was first played on
Smith’s lawn in 1955. That year, at His Royal
Highness’s instigation, Archie David closed
the Henley Polo Club and moved his entire
string to the Mews at Windsor Castle, from
where he encouraged many young Guards
officers to play, either on his ponies or on the
24 which he soon presented to the club.
Polo first entered Prince Philip’s horizon
when, as a schoolboy at Cheam, he was
taken to watch the spectacular Jaipur
team claim a clean sweep of the ‘Big Three’:
the Ranelagh, Roehampton and
Hurlingham Opens.
In 1939, following a brief spell at Salem
in Germany and his continued education at
Gordonstoun, Prince Philip moved for nine
months to the Royal Naval College,
Dartmouth. It was while there that he
reputedly first caught the eye of the then
Princess Elizabeth who, with her sister
Princess Margaret, had accompanied
their father on an informal visit. At the
outbreak of war, he was commissioned first
to HMS Ramillies in the Indian Ocean,
and then moved between various ships in
the Mediterranean and Far Eastern waters.
It was while based in Malta – under the
tutelage of his uncle, Admiral Lord
Mountbatten, himself a pre-war 5-goal
player – that he first took up polo.
Five years after his marriage to Princess
Elizabeth in 1947, Prince Philip’s naval career
ceased following the death of King George
VI. Now based at Buckingham Palace,
he needed an active sport in which to
participate. Having first tried cricket,
he turned to polo, riding three ponies lent by
Lord Cowdray, stabled at Cowdray House,
under the expert care of stud-groom William
Woodcott, and a young girl by the name of
Pam Donoghue. The latter ran Prince Philip’s
own stable up to his retirement from polo
and then continued with Prince Charles.
Initially he formed the team ‘The
Mariners’, so called because it consisted of
two erstwhile naval colleagues, Robert de
Pass and Matt Maunder, and the former
Royal Marine General Robert Neville who,
due to injury, had to be replaced by former
Chindit and Ghurkha Colonel Alec Harper.
The name however survived, as did the
distinctive square-necked naval ratings’
shirts – white with dark blue edging.
Being committed to this team, Prince
Philip did not play at Windsor in 1955, apart
from competing in the first Royal Windsor
