ASPEN SNOW POLO

Aspen Snow Polo is three days of polo on snow in the middle of December, its finals played in the centre of Aspen on Rio Grande Park, a town park that the ski company covers with man-made snow for it: teams of three, professionals with ranked amateurs, playing a large, light ball on horses shod with cleats. It is the St. Regis World Snow Polo Championship, and it is the only snow polo played in North America.

In 2025 one of the players, announced to the crowd as “Harry Wales”, was Prince Harry.

St. Moritz to Aspen

Snow polo was introduced in 1985 by a Swiss hotelier, Reto Gaudenzi, on the frozen lake at St. Moritz.

Aspen came to it later. In 2024 the tournament was spoken of as the first snow polo tournament in North America, begun “just over a decade ago”, and in 2025 it reached its thirteenth edition. It is run by the Aspen Valley Polo Club, whose founders, Marc and Melissa Ganzi, are its hosts, and the horses come from the club. Snow polo in Aspen is counted from earlier still: the Aspen Times marked its twentieth anniversary in 2024, the last twelve years of it under the club.

The St. Regis is its title sponsor, and claims the game by descent. John Jacob Astor founded the St. Regis in New York in 1904, and his family used to host polo matches on Governors Island. With a Snow Polo Gala, the tournament has raised money for the Aspen Valley Hospital Foundation.

It was played at first in Wagner Park, and moved to Rio Grande Park, which the club’s director, Greg Kiner, called “a much better location”.

The Chukkers

The game is cut down for the snow. Each side has three players rather than four, the ball is larger and lighter, and inflatable, and the horses wear cleated shoes. A match is four chukkers of seven minutes.

The field is made for the occasion. The Aspen Skiing Company makes the snow, with water drawn near City Hall, and its snowcats spread it over the park from about ten days before; if the flow of Castle Creek drops below twelve cubic feet a second, the snowmaking stops.

The professionals play with ranked amateurs, three to a squad. The qualifying games are a round-robin on the Tuesday at the Aspen Valley Polo Club; the finals are played in town on the Thursday. The St. Regis gives welcome drinks in its Paradis Suite and keeps a chalet beside the field, Caviar Kaspia takes The Snow Lodge in the evening, and the tournament closes with a bottle of champagne opened with a sabre. The sideline, W wrote in 2025, was “fox fur-clad and Hermès-toting”.

In 2025, on 17 and 18 December, Prince Harry played for the Aspen Valley Polo Club against the St. Regis team of Nacho Figueras, who played with his sons Hilario and Artemo; the St. Regis won the final, and Hilario Figueras was its most valuable player. The 2026 tournament has not yet been dated.

What to Know

It is played midweek in the third week of December: on 18 and 19 December in 2024, and on 17 and 18 December in 2025. The dates for 2026 and 2027 have not been announced.

Tickets always sell out, and in 2024 were priced from more than $600 a day.

Country attire, and warm: the game is played on snow in December. Nothing is published; the sideline wears fur and Western hats, and the Court wears tweed and a good coat.

Rio Grande Park is in the centre of Aspen, a few minutes from the St. Regis Aspen, the title sponsor, where the tournament’s own gatherings are held. Stay there.

The mistake is to plan for a weekend. In 2025 the two days in town were a Wednesday and a Thursday.

The Court

Aspen Snow Polo is not the Court’s own. Places at the finals and at the St. Regis’s chalet beside the field are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay in Aspen, and the table afterward. The Snow Polo World Cup follows in late January.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.