Jaipur Trophy Returns To Guards Polo Club For Indian Polo Day Clash

The Jaipur Trophy was contested at London’s Guards Polo Club on July 18, as the Jaipur Polo Team met the Guards Polo Club team at Smith’s Lawn in Windsor Great Park to mark Indian Polo Day.

The Jaipur Polo Team fielded Padmanabh Singh, Will Emerson, Simran Singh Shergill and Naveen Jindal. The Guards Polo Club side included Sardar Jaisal Singh, Abhimanyu Pathak, Kuldeep Singh Rathore and Juan Gris Zavaleta. The match began at 7.30pm Indian Standard Time and was streamed live on Guards TV.

Earlier in the day, the final of the Indian Polo Challenge Shield, an India-versus-Britain contest, was also played at the club, with Padmanabh Singh presenting the trophy to the winning team.

The Jaipur Trophy was first presented to the Guards Polo Club in 1968 by Man Singh II, a leading polo player of the 20th century and a patron of the sport. He died in 1970, and his wife, Gayatri Devi, went on to support the trophy for nearly four decades by attending its matches.

The tradition later passed to Brigadier Bhawani Singh and is now continued by Padmanabh Singh. The trophy was last played in 2011 and then dropped off the Guards Polo Club calendar for 11 years before its revival in 2025.

The fixture is regarded as a symbol of the long-standing sporting ties between India and Britain, connecting Jaipur’s royal polo history to a club on the outskirts of London.

Wikimedia Commons/by Andreas Polo