Elephant Polo Tournament 2010, King's Cup held in Chiang Rai

The 2010 King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament is being held at Anantara Golden Triangle Resort, in Chiang Rai from Monday 22nd of March to Monday 29th March. The week long competition is held along the banks of the Ruak River, which forms the border between Thailand and Burma.

During the first five years of the tournament, the event took place in the Royal seaside town of Hua Hin before moving to the native home of elephants in 2006 – the Golden Triangle. The tournament was introduced to Thailand in 2001 by Anantara Resorts and is a charitable event that raises money for the country’s National Elephant Institute in Lampang, northern Thailand.

In just seven years the King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament has gone from a small two-day event with six teams into a week-long extravaganza, which in 2009 featured 12 teams from four continents encompassing 40 players from at least 15 countries.

While the event officially runs until Monday the 29th, that day is designated a “leisure day”, so if you want to catch some of the action, you will need to get up there by Sunday at the latest, when the grand final match is played.

Sunday, March 28^th

9am                                    Wooden Spoon Match – 11^th place decider.
10am                                 Jazz Brunch
10am                                 9^th Place “Relegation Worries Over” Match
11am                                 7^th Place “Look how far we’ve come” Match
12pm                                 Children’s Challenge Match
1.30pm                              5^th Place “Mid-table Heroes” Match
2.30pm                             3^rd Place “Best of the Rest, we’ll get it next year” Match
4pm                                    King’s Cup Elephant Polo Grand Final 2010
5.30pm                              Prize Giving Ceremony with Cocktails
Dinner at Leisure

The full schedule of the events can be found here.

From the AnantaraElephantPolo.com website:
Charming little Chiang Saen town in northern Thailand was once the seat of an empire; today it’s so peaceful that a herd of elephants could easily shamble through town and few would notice. However, when exactly that happened this Monday, the whole town did in fact sit up and take notice.

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