Gazing out from his private polo field near Aqaba, Jordanian Crown Prince Hassan can probably see Israeli patrols raising dust along the border track north of Eilat.
With a little luck and some headway in the peace talks Hassan may soon be invited to play a chukker or two just across that track, at a spanking new $ 5.7-million equestrian center, complete with Israel's first polo fields, slated to open in the winter of 1994.
The Eilat Polo Center is the brainchild of Ben Remez, a 41-year-old California-based Israeli real-estate developer, and co-founder of the Los Angeles Equestrian Center Polo Club in Burbank. Remez wants to provide winter-stricken European players with a conveniently situated outdoor arena in which to indulge their year-round passion. He is being backed by Israel's Dan-El construction company, owner of one of Eilat's biggest scuba diving facilities, and by Ami Shinitzky, the Israeli-born editor of the U.S.-based magazine Polo.
Remez says the prospect of three new regulation-size polo fields, a practice field and race track, as well as a 150-unit luxury hotel and club, has already aroused the enthusiasm and interest of the United States Polo Association and the Professional Polo Association, as well as polo magazines.
Shinitzky says that he has already received an inquiry from Egyptian Colonel Alaf el Attar, a leading Cairo polo aficionado, who asked whether it might prove possible for the Egyptian team to join the club and use its facilities.
Polo is no newcomer to the Middle East. The ancient Persians played a stick and ball sport called chaugan and polo has since found adherents in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Sudan and modern-day Iran, as well as the Gulf states. Interest in Israel, however, has been minimial.
Remez learned to ride as a child in Moshav Kfar Yedidiah and trained as a cattle-roper in Rochester, New York, and later in Brownsville, Texas. He caught the polo bug during the early 80s, two years after becoming a stockholder in the L.A. Equestrian Center.
"Churchill once said that the best passport in the world is to be a registered polo player," notes Remez. "We've already heard of interest in the center from as far away as Kuwait and Bahrain. My hope, of course, is that polo players from those countries as well as our neighbor, Prince Hassan will eventually play on our fields." Sheli Teitelbaum/Los Angeles