Even for the most experienced players, beach polo, a game invented in Dubai and now being played in more than 30 countries, takes some adjustment.
On a smaller field and softer surface, it is played over three chukkas of seven minutes with three players to a team.
For Lucas Labat, an Argentinian representing Lindt Master Swiss Chocolatiers Polo team, the Julius Baer Beach Polo Cup Dubai 2014 is just another challenge in an eventful career.
“I started playing tournaments when I was nine and turned professional when I was 18,” said Labat, who lists as his career highlight playing for Argentina in the 1998 Polo World Cup in Santa Barbara, California.
That year, Argentina won the title for the third time and added a fourth title in 2011, the most by any country since the competition started in 1987.
Labat, 38, still enjoys playing polo and has returned to Dubai for the two-day event that kicked off on Friday night.
“I’ve played beach polo before, here in Dubai last year and also in Ascona in Switzerland,” he said. He has also played snow polo in the alpine communities of St Moritz and Courchevel.
“Playing on snow is nice,” he said, “especially in St Moritz, which I think has the best snow polo venue in the world.
“Teams of four against four played on a frozen lake, 180 metres by 55 metres, a very big field. It’s also very fast.”
Beach polo, Labat said, requires a different set of skills and awareness to other versions.
He said it is much more technical than regular polo.
“There is less speed and the ball is very unpredictable. You have to think a lot about the play,” he said. “You don’t need a very fast horse, but you need it to be able to turn well, and be in control.”
The concept of beach polo came to Dubai resident Sam Katiela in 2004 after he saw a snow polo match in Switzerland.
Katiela reasoned that if the game can be played on grass and snow, why not on sand?
After an absence of six years, beach polo returned to Dubai last year and will celebrate its 10th anniversary at a new venue, in association with the Dubai Sports Council and under the patronage of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai.
Last year, the event took place at the Mina Al Salam Hotel in the shadow of the Burj Al Arab, but this year it has moved to the spectacular surroundings of Skydive Dubai for the first time.
Another new aspect added this year is that the competition will take place at night, underneath floodlights.
"This will push the tournament to a totally different level, giving it the awareness it deserves, because this is an event of Dubai and the UAE," Katiela said. "This event represents the strengths, the spirit and the passion for sport that the UAE is proud of."
The world’s largest beach polo venue was built especially for the occasion and the players experienced the field for the first time at Friday night’s kick-off.
“It wasn’t easy to practise on the actual pitch because it was being prepared,” Labat said on the eve of the tournament.
“But it’s OK; we trained on a smaller field with a plastic ball.”
The unpredictable movement of the ball of which Labat spoke is primarily because of the constitution of the sand. The playing “field”, though, tends to be a little harder than the “beach” tag might suggest.
“Of course, I like the sand not to be too soft,” he said. “The horses will sink deeper and then get tired, on a soft surface. I like it compact and quite wet, with a lot of humidity. This way the action is faster.”
Beach polo spectators get a closer view of that action than at regular polo matches. It was Katiela’s intention all along to make polo more accessible and attractive to a wider public.
For Labat, Katiela and the polo fans present at Saturday night's Julius Baer Beach Polo Cup final, it is the latest proof that an idea 10 years in the making is finally catching on and suggests that in Dubai, and around the world, beach polo is here to stay.
akhaled@thenational.ae
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