Berenberg Bank has been active as a sponsor in polo for ten years. The first tournament took place on the premises of the Hamburg Polo Club in the Hamburg district of Klein Flottbek which in June 2010 also hosted the Berenberg Polo Derby for the tenth time. This tournament has become a permanent fixture among the most renowned tournaments in Germany. It is also the season-opening tournament of the German Polo Tour. Berenberg has probably meanwhile become the biggest sponsor of this fascinating sport in Germany.

A polo team comprises four players, who normally play in four periods, the so-called chukkas, of seven and a half minutes each. To protect the horses the stress on whom is very high, the regulations provide for the quadruped to be replaced after every chukka. By contrast, the players have to stick it out until the end of the match. However, polo is not a “bodyless” sport: it’s man against man, horse against horse. The ball, weighing about 4 ounces, is hit with mallets, which are about 51 inches long, in all places – no matter whether it is on the side of the horse, diagonally under the neck or even behind the horse’s body.

A minor curiosity contributes to the confusion of spectators unacquainted with polo: ends are changed at every goal scored. This goes back to the time when polo was still played in the colonies, with the games taking place mostly in the late hours of the afternoon when temperatures were no longer so hot. Whoever played against the low sun was thus at a disadvantage. “For all its fastness and hardness, polo is also a very fair sport – and this is also what accounts for its fascination,” says Dr Hans-Walter Peters, speaker of the personally liable partners of Berenberg Bank.

Main sponsorships in 2011:

• 23-24 January 2011
  Berenberg Snow-Polo, Klosters (CH)

• 28-29 May 2011
  Berenberg Polo-Derby, Hamburg
• 25 June 2011
  Berenberg Bank's day in the park, London (UK)
• 09-10 July 2011
  Berenberg High Goal Cup, Dusseldorf
• 16-17 July 2011
  Fürstenberg Cup presented by Berenberg Bank
• 22 July 2011
  Berenberg Polo-Cup Son Coll, Majorca (ES)
• 27-28 August 2011
  Berenberg Polo-Derby, Oberursel (Taunus)
• 10-11 September 2011
  Polo Emotions Cup presented by Berenberg Bank, Stuttgart