Argentina is universally recognized as polo’s mecca, with several thousand active players. Over half of the sport’s top pro players hail from Argentina, including Adolfo Cambiaso of La Dolfina and Facundo Pieres of Ellerstina. No Latin American country can be as good as Argentina in the sport of Polo, which was brought in by English immigrants at the beginning of the 19th century. Eventually, clubs were organised under the River ate Polo Association in 1892, which gave birth to the Argentine Polo Association in 1922.
he Argentine Polo Association was constituted on September 14, 1922, in Buenos, Aires and is acts as a guiding entity of the game of Polo in Argentina. It organizes the most important polo tournament in the world, the Campeonato Argentino Abierto de Polo, which is played in the Campo Argentino de Polo.
On Saturday, September 14, 2019, The Argentine Polo Association celebrated its first 97 years. It was created in 1922, after the merger of National Polo Federation and River Plate Polo Association, on the opening day of the Argentine Open Championship that year, which was played at Hurlingham Club. Its first step was to get non- affiliated clubs to accept the invitation to join the Association and soon the nascent institutions brought together 26 clubs, with 254 players who registered their handicap, mainly from inland clubs.
It was the primary concern of the new authorities to address the dissemination and knowledge of the rules of the game, taken from the rules of Hurlingham Club of London, which has been accepted as an Association Officer and at the same time required strict compliance so that it was practiced uniformly throughout the country. Four years later, Hurlingham Martin Iron, with four native Argentine players, won the highest interclub contest. In 1927, in conjunction with the leaders of the War Horse Commission, they ordered the construction of the famous fields 1 and 2 of Palermo, inaugurated in 1928, which became the grounds of conquest worldwide and the historical records that made it win the nickname of World Polo Cathedral. It is a multi-purpose stadium in Buenos Aires and is mostly used for polo, pato and field hockey matches. The Campo Argentino is the home to the Campeonato Argentino Abierto de Polo, the most important polo event in the world, held there since 1928.
The Argentine Polo Association conducts important and formative tournaments such as the National Intercircuit Championship with handicap for the Argentine Republic Cup, the Argentine Youth Open Championship, the National Junior Tournament, The Intercollegiate for Santa Paula Cup and for New Zealand Cup, the Palermo Open Argentine Championship, which this year will play its 126th version.
Today, the Argentina polo season takes place between October and December, and many of the world’s best players descend on the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires to play on the hallowed ground of the infamous “Cathedral of Polo” in Palermo, and also in the well-known Hurlingham Club to the north of the city. The country leads the way in polo because people there are obsessed with the game. “There’s a culture of horses in this country,” says Bill Buchanan, manager of the Argentine Association of Polo Pony Breeders. “That’s why polo became so popular.” The three most important polo championships, collectively known as the ‘Triple Crown’ are played in Buenos Aires. Two are the opens that take place in the leafy suburbs of Hurlingham and Tortugas. The most celebrated tournament is the Abierto Argentino (Argentine Open) set in Palermo’s Campo Argentina de Polo (known as the ‘Cathedral of Polo,’ ). The tournament pits eight teams against each other and provides the best opportunity for visitors to witness the high-speed drama of a match.
