Top businessmen, Manila society’s elite and polo aficionados turned up for the 12th Enrique Zobel Memorial Polo Cup last Sunday that saw top polo teams and players thundering across the Manila Polo Club’s Enrique Zobel Field to show their supremacy in a sport dubbed as “the game of kings.”
The Enrique Zobel Memorial Polo Cup is probably one of the most exciting and well-attended polo tournaments in the country today, held in honor of the late Don Enrique Zobel, a personal friend of ours. Known as EZ by people close to him, the late businessman during his heyday cut a dashing figure as he engaged in his passion for the game, with polo playmates that included the famous and the wealthy like the Sultan of Brunei. In fact, EZ holds the distinction of being the first Filipino president of the Manila Polo Club.
In May 1991, however, EZ suffered from a spine injury when he fell from his horse while he was playing polo in Sotogrande, Spain — causing him to be paralyzed from the neck down, spending 13 years in a wheelchair until his death in May 2004 at the age of 77.
A year after Enrique’s death, EZ’s son Iñigo — himself a sportsman who shared his father’s passion for polo — and widow Dee Hora-Zobel launched the memorial cup in honor of the sportsman who practically died with his boots on and a polo mallet in his hand. Photos by Ramon Joseph J. Ruiz