Portsea Polo is an annual
polo
Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...
event held in
Portsea, Victoria
Portsea is a seaside town on the Mornington Peninsula in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, approximately south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Shire of Mornington Peninsula local government area. Portsea recorded ...
. The event was founded in 2002 by David Calvert-Jones, grandson of philanthropist
Dame Elisabeth Murdoch
Dame Elisabeth Joy Murdoch, Lady Murdoch (née Greene; 8 February 1909 – 5 December 2012), also known as Elisabeth, Lady Murdoch, was an Australian philanthropist and matriarch of the Murdoch family. She was the widow of Australian news ...
.
It is held on a Saturday in mid-January at Jarman Oval, near the former Quarantine Station located on
Point Nepean
Point Nepean (Boonwurrung: ''Boona-djalang'') marks the southern point of The Rip (the entrance to Port Phillip) and the most westerly point of the Mornington Peninsula, in Victoria, Australia. It was named in 1802 after the British politician ...
.
History
Started as a charity event to raise money for the
Murdoch Children's Research Institute
The Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) is an Australian paediatric medical research institute located in Melbourne, Victoria, affiliated with the Royal Children's Hospital and the University of Melbourne. The institute has six research ...
, the event only attracted a few hundred spectators in its first year. Across the following few years the event began to grow, drawing in 5000 spectators in its fifth year and selling out for the first time. It has consistently drawn crowds of up to 6000 spectators since,
and now raises over $100,000 for the charity annually.
The event, which costs over $1 million to run, is funded through sponsorship from large brands,
and has variously had naming partnerships with ''
The Age
''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
,''
Stella Artois
Stella Artois ( ) is a pilsner beer, first brewed in 1926 by Brouwerij Artois in Leuven, Belgium. In its original form, the beer is 5.2 per cent ABV, the country's standard for pilsners. The beer is also sold in other countries like the UK, Ire ...
,
Jeep
Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...
,
Teka
The Teka Group is a multinational company founded in Germany in 1924 and engaged in the manufacture and commercialisation of kitchen products. It specializes in sinks, exhaust hoods, hobs and ovens. The group has 14 factories in Europe, America a ...
,
Elica and
Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. () is an Italian luxury car manufacturer and a subsidiary of Stellantis. The company was founded on 24 June 1910, in Milan, Italy. "Alfa" is an acronym of its founding name, "Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili." ...
. It regularly attracts many well known names from some of Melbourne's most affluent families.
The 2008 event was cancelled by the Point Nepean Community Trust due to concerns surrounding an outbreak of
equine influenza
Equine influenza (horse flu) is the disease caused by strains of influenza A that are enzootic in horse species. Equine influenza occurs globally, previously caused by two main strains of virus: equine-1 (H7N7) and equine-2 (H3N8). The OIE now cons ...
.
References
External links
* {{Official website, https://www.portseapolo.com.au/
2002 establishments in Australia
Sports organizations established in 2002
Sports competitions in Melbourne
Polo competitions in Australia