A Palm Beach Story

It's the mark o' polo

MRS. Sturgeon, the woman lunching on my left, didn't especially care for polo. Never mind that the final of the Rolex Gold Cup, one of the most prestigious of Palm Beach Polo and Country Club's eight annual tournaments, was about to begin. "My dear, I'm racehorse people. If this were Hialeah, why, yes. I'd be out yelling my head off in the grandstands. But here at P.B.P.C.C. . . .well, I find the people more intriguing than the ponies. Are you polo?" "I'mpress."

"Oh. Well then." She poked dubiously at her shrimp. "I can tell racehorse people from steeplechase people from polo people just by looking at them. You look polo tome."

I took this as a compliment. I had spent the previous two days hanging around with professional polo players, superstars like Memo Gracida, Gonzalo Pieres, and Antonio Herrera, and, believe me, they're a handsome and gracious bunch. Recently Herrera galloped into a parked car, crushing his nose, and he's still handsome and gracious. I had met the men who hire these hotshots to play on their teams-Polish-born Hen ryk de Kwiatkowski, Nigerian Usman Dantata, Anglo-Kenyan Geoffrey Kent, to name three typically exotic owners. I had seen their gorgeous horses, threescore and upward, in barns more comfortable than many of Florida's motels. I had even played a little polo myself. O.K., it was on a wooden sawhorse, but still it was thrilling. The creak of the leather, the thwack of the ball. I couldn't wait for the big match to start.

But the guest of honor at this pre-polo luncheon. Queen Sirikit of Thailand, was eating her strawberries. Nobody could leave the sweltering luncheon tent before Her Majesty rose. In Thailand the queen is revered as a goddess, and I'd been carefully briefed on decorum by the Rolex P.R. people: "It's O.K. to touch her, but no interviews, and don't cross your legs in her presence." Mrs. Sturgeon was admiring the queen's hat. "Oh, but look, she's perspiring. Poor dear, she's mopping her head with a hankie."

There were other hats to admire, on other admirable heads. P.B.P.C.C. is hoping the Rolex Gold Cup will become an American Ascot. (It has equally high hopes for the Cartier International Open and the Piaget World Cup.) "We're creating a tradition here," said Laurie Ylvisaker, whose father, William, turned a cattle and citrus ranch into this Disney World of polo a scant seven years ago. Miss Ylvisaker had conducted a tour of the resort's 1,650 acres the day before. Here were P.B.P.C.C.'s bams, capable of stabling two thousand horses; here its eleven polo fields, each ten times the size of a football grid; and here its six hundred condominiums and homes, constructed in Spanish, French, and Floridian styles.

"My father noticed real estate appreciates fastest around polo Fields," said Ylvisaker, looking sheepish. Smart man: there's a waiting list for the condos and the resort is seventeen miles from the beach. "Prince Charles owns one of those houses," she said, pointing to a big place on "Polo Island," "and Zsa Zsa Gabor lives over there. The prince loves the sport and Zsa Zsa loves the players. Polo has something for everybody. ' '

Neitherthe prince nor Zsa Zsa was in attendance today, but Sturgeon was busy pointing out other notables. "That's Princess Maria Pia of Italy, and over there is Prince Michael of Spain. They're internationals, of course. A couple. But not married."

"I beg your pardon," said the woman on my right, who seemed by her accent to be an international herself. "They are indeed married."

Sturgeon bridled. "Iam sure they are not."

"Forgive me," said the international. "I have known them all my life."

They argued heatedly. Luckily, the queen rose. She glided away, her five ladies-in-waiting trundling after her. I said a hurried good-bye to my luncheon companions: the match had already started. The crowd, seven thousand at least, was roaring; the horses were thundering over the field. "Perhaps I'll see you in the stands," I said to Sturgeon, but doubted it. Her sport was here, with the thoroughbred beside her. God forbid polo should get in the way.

John Seabrook