For more than 50 years, Eldorado Polo Club has been blending the allure of the 1,000 year old game of polo with the glamour of Los Angeles and Palm Springs, and mixing in a lot of cowboy for good measure. The result is a unique amalgam of old and new, tradition and innovation, champagne and long-neck Coronas, that has come to be known as polo, desert style.

Polo was first played in California in 1877, not long after the sport was brought to the U.S. from England by James Gordon Bennett. By the turn of the century, polo was being played in the San Diego area, on Coronado Island. Los Angeles quickly became an exciting center for the sport, boasting several top-ranked clubs and a long list of celebrity players such as Will Rogers.

When Palm Springs was "discovered" in the 1930's, La Quinta became a hideaway for the Hollywood set. Polo followed. The dry winter weather and the beautiful flat terrain were irresistible and before long, polo was being played on the Desert Air airstrip outside of Palm Springs.

After World War II, players like San Diego's Willis Allen, and L.A.'s Tony Veen, began to attract a regular cadre of followers to the desert. The games moved on to Shadow Mountain Country Club, and then on to Eldorado Country Club. Eldorado provided the players with two regulation-size grass fields, and when the group joined the United States Polo Association in 1957, they adopted the Eldorado name.

Known from the first as an informal, player's club, Eldorado attracted the country's best sportsmen, and players such as Bill Gilmore and Willie Tevis, from California. In the mid-1960's, en route from Los Angeles to his home in Texas, Carlton Beal, a dedicated polo player, stopped by Eldorado to see Veen, his old friend and teammate on the victorious 1952 U.S. Open team. Beal liked what he saw and added his support to the fledgling club.

Joined by Henry Trione and Paul von Gontard, Allen and Beal formed the irrepressible and now-legendary Eldorado team that took to the road and carried the club banner from Manila to Cuba to Rome. In return, Eldorado became a destination for major international players such as Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Major Ronald Ferguson, and the Gracidas.

Eldorado caught the crest of the polo boom in the mid 1970's and the facilities in Palm Springs soon became inadequate. It was then that Carlton Beal invited Willis Allen on a plane flight over the east end of the Coachella Valley, over some 180 acres that had become available between La Quinta and Indio. That excursion blossomed into the present-day home of the club, with 14 fields, stabling for 1,000 horses, and almost endless exercise and practice areas.

Eldorado's location is among the most beautiful in the world. Nestled against the mountains at the east end of the Coachella Valley, the club seems a tropical paradise. The days are balmy most of the season, and the warm desert nights are heavy with the scent of orange blossoms. Los Angeles is a scant two hours away, Palm Springs less than a half hour, but there is a magic feeling of isolation, of being a long penalty shot from the end of the world.

Eldorado's present-day reputation as a world-class, international club has come from years hosting such diverse events as the U.S. Open Polo Championship, the annual "Skins" polo game, known formally as the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center Polo Classic, and the annual Governor's Cup. To host one Open is an honor; Eldorado has hosted three. The Skins Game is the highlight of the high-goal season. The Governor's Cup, a four chukker tournament limited to teams rating six goals, routinely attracts more than 30 teams from all over the U.S.

Eldorado is proud to host two all-women tournaments: the annual Debii Dollar Conant Memorial in the fall, and the Women's Challenge in the spring. Five of Eldorado's women players have been recognized by POLO magazine as Woman Player of the year-Eldorado's Polo Manager Susan Stovall, Sunny Hale (four times), Caroline Anier (twice), Kim Kelly, and Oatsy Baker.

From the first, Eldorado was conceived as a player's club. The late Carlton Beal, one of the club's most influential founders was particularly adamant about that. He and the others would have had it no other way. Club Manager Alex Jacoy, a former 2-goal player, has carried on that tradition for almost 20 years . "We try to give all of the players everything they need to play." he says. "That's our first priority, and that's always been the whole idea of Eldorado."