Four Generations, One Trophy: How Jaipur’s Royals Kept A 1968 Legacy Alive

Three generations of one family have kept a single polo trophy alive for more than half a century — and on July 18, the fixture it created returned to London’s Guards Polo Club for Indian Polo Day.

The Jaipur Trophy began in 1968, when Man Singh II, one of the most celebrated polo players of the 20th century, presented it to the Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park. He died two years later, in 1970.

After his death, his wife, Gayatri Devi, took up the mantle, supporting the trophy for close to four decades by regularly attending its matches at the club. The tradition was later carried forward by Brigadier Bhawani Singh, and today rests with Padmanabh Singh.

The trophy was last contested in 2011 and then disappeared from the Guards Polo Club calendar for 11 years, before Padmanabh Singh revived it in 2025.

This year’s edition saw the Jaipur Polo Team, made up of Padmanabh Singh, Will Emerson, Simran Singh Shergill and Naveen Jindal, take on a Guards Polo Club side of Sardar Jaisal Singh, Abhimanyu Pathak, Kuldeep Singh Rathore and Juan Gris Zavaleta, in a match that began at 7.30pm IST and streamed live on Guards TV.

Earlier the same day, Padmanabh Singh presented the Indian Polo Challenge Shield to the winning team following its India-versus-Britain final, underlining his continued role at the centre of a tradition his great-grandfather started.

Wikimedia Commons/by Andreas Polo