Jaipur cracks the code with night polo as Pacho’s team dominates first leg

For generations, the Indian sport of modern polo had adhered to an immutable calendar dictated by the arc of the sun.

The whistle blows, the chukkers unfold across dust and emerald turf, and as dusk descends over the ancient walls of the Pink City, the horses are stabled, the crowds disperse, and the grounds fall silent.

In Jaipur, however, the narrative of Indian polo has officially been rewritten under the glare of high-mast floodlights.

The opening leg of the 2026-27 Indian Polo Season saw the historic Rajasthan Polo Club (RPC) and the Jaipur Polo team — led with characteristic verve by His Highness Maharaja Sawai Padmanabh Singh, affectionately known to the world as ‘Pacho’ — decisively capture the imagination of the country.

The first leg of the Jaipur Polo Season 2026-27 commenced on September 1 and saw many of the matches played under the floodlights at the RPC grounds with the Patron’s Polo Club and the cavalry polo grounds also hosting matches.

The crowds can be seen at a night polo match at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan during the September-October 2026 leg. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

Seven weeks later, the experiment looks like a success.

A brief look how the Jaipur Polo team won each tournament it played, in this leg:

(L to R) Dino Dhankar, Martin Carlos Donovan, and Vishwaraj Singh Rathore and their polo ponies can be seen on the gallop at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan during the September-October 2026 leg. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

Led by Singh, the team throughout this leg also comprised top polo players like Akshai Malik, Kuldeep Singh Rathore, Vishwaraj Singh Rathore, Martin Carlos Donovan, Pratap Singh Kanota, Dino Dhankar, Savir Mehraj Godara and Anay Shah.

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“It was a major challenge”

Pacho says the idea has been with him for years. “To be honest, it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” he told Firstpost in an exclusive interview.

His inspiration, he said, sits close by. “Right around the corner from here is a cricket ground [Sawai Mansingh Stadium]. They play all their most important matches at night. And a lot of people have often complained that they do only get free in the evenings.”

The risks were real, and he does not play them down. “We weren’t sure if the horses would get used to it, we weren’t sure if the players would get used to it, we weren’t sure if the ball was going to be visible,” he said.

Floodlights are familiar in other sports, but polo poses its own puzzle. “In no other sport has it been done where it’s a contact sport with a ball which is tiny, where horses move at 30 kilometres an hour. It was a major challenge.”

The winning Jaipur Polo team poses for a photograph with the Sawai Man Guard Cup trophy at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan on October 10, 2026. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

“But we took the ambitious step, and in life, I think that it’s important to be bold and take these steps,” he said. “In our case, we are glad that it rewarded us.”

The horses, the animals Pacho and his team had expected to struggle, turned out to be the easy part.

Asked whether the ponies had to adapt to the lights and the crowds, he said, “Actually, not at all. They immediately got used to it. Much better than the players, actually. The players took some time. For the horses, it was as if they’ve always played night polo.”

“We always thought that the horses would actually have a problem, but no, they’re a lot more sturdy and tough than we think as animals.”

HH Sawai Padmanabh Singh and his polo pony can be seen on the gallop as they are chased by other players during a night polo match at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan during the September-October 2026 leg. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

The leg’s dominance is the more striking given Pacho’s own build-up. His off-season, as ever, was spent on the move: a season in France, some games in England and a trip to Argentina.

Then came a back operation in July that “took a big toll” and left him bedridden for a few days. “The last part of the off-season was all about recovery and getting back into the routine,” he said.

A new reason to visit Jaipur

If night polo works on the field, its larger promise lies off it, and the tourism industry has noticed.

The Federation of Hospitality and Tourism of Rajasthan (FHTR) organises the Rajasthan Domestic Travel Mart (RDTM) with support from the state’s tourism department, and the 2026 edition was scheduled for Jaipur from September 17 to 19.

Ahead of it, an FHTR delegation met Pacho, as reported, expressed his pleasure that the first-ever night polo match would be organised at the club.

For Pacho, the tourism case is simple. “I hope it will be a major one. There is nowhere in the world like Rajasthan when it comes to tourism,” he said, pointing to its palaces and its nature and to “the harmony in which the two coexist”.

He placed the lights in a family tradition of adding to the city: “just like the great Sawai Man Singh and all these great people have added in the past,” the aim is to “contribute to the various activities of Jaipur”. He added, “It’s a matter of huge pride and honour and I hope that this will give one more reason for people to come to Jaipur.”

HH Sawai Padmanabh Singh (in pachranga), Dino Dhankar and their polo ponies can be seen on the field during the final of the Sawai Man Guard Cup at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan on October 10, 2026. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

The timing helps. Jaipur approaches its 300th anniversary in 2027, and the team has already begun marking “Jaipur 300 | 1727-2027” on its social channels.

Can Delhi and Mumbai follow?

Pacho is an executive committee member of the IPA’s Rajasthan Zone, so his answer on whether the model can travel carries weight. “Yes I hope. The associations there can think like this as well,” he said.

“People get free in the evenings, they want things to do and right in the middle of the city you have this facility.”

In Delhi and Mumbai, he sees “huge opportunities” there when it comes to “players, recruitment, sponsorship”. “So if we can organise polo well there as well, it would be great overall for the sport.”

The sport’s structural questions are real. The IPA has put the number of registered clubs at 33, and India’s 10-9 win over world number one Argentina in the KogniVera International Polo Cup final last November, noted limited clubs, high costs and low sponsorship against Argentina’s well-funded polo infrastructure.

(Left) HH Sawai Padmanabh Singh can be seen taking a shot, (Right) HH Sawai Padmanabh Singh and a player from Sternhagen can be seen on the gallop during the final of the Sawai Man Guard Cup at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan on October 10, 2026. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

Pacho and Simran Singh Shergill led that Indian side. Night polo will not fix those problems alone, but a format built around the hours when people are free offers clubs and sponsors a wider audience, which is the argument Pacho is making.

The team itself heads to the Delhi Spring Polo Season in March 2027, where its schedule lists the Indian Open Polo Championship and the Northern Indian Polo Championship.

Inheriting a legacy

The most personal moment of the interview came when Firstpost asked what Sawai Man Singh II, Pacho’s great-grandfather, would say if he walked into RPC today. “I wish I knew the answer. I think about it a lot,” Pacho said.

“I wish I could meet him and there are a thousand questions that I’d like to ask him, but I suppose he would be happy. He dedicated a lot of his life to his country, to the army and to polo. So I’m sure he’d be thrilled to see the numbers that we’re getting here.”

From first-hand accounts, Pacho said, his ancestors “continued to push barriers and always wanted to achieve higher and more and bigger and better for their people, for their country, for their city”. “We will also live by the same values and we really think the sky is the limit.”

HH Sawai Padmanabh Singh and the team at the Rajasthan Polo Club unveil a bust of Brigadier Sawai Bhawani Singh after the final of Sawai Man Guard Cup at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan on October 10, 2026. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

The club’s own history gives the scale of that legacy. It traces its origins to the Jaipur Polo Club of 1918, renamed the Rajasthan Polo Club in 1957 after Jaipur State merged into Rajasthan, and describes Man Singh II, a nine-goal player, building the ground near Rambagh Palace.

Accounts of Indian polo history record that the Jaipur team won all the open tournaments in Britain, as well as the Indian Championship, in 1933, a feat often described as unlikely to be repeated.

The club lists Jacqueline Kennedy and UK’s Princess Diana among the international figures who have watched matches in Jaipur.

Then came the quiet. Pacho, 28, was installed as the titular Maharaja of Jaipur at 12 after the death of his grandfather, Brigadier Sawai Bhawani Singh, in 2011, and began competing in England in 2015.

He resurrected the Jaipur team in 2023, after it lay dormant for years. The revival has travelled: in July 2025 the team was a partner in the first India Day at Guards Polo Club in England, where the Jaipur Trophy, first presented to the club by Man Singh II in 1968, was relaunched.

Martin Carlos Donovan (left), Allan Shaun Michael and their polo ponies can be seen on the gallop during a night polo match at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan during the September-October 2026 leg. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

At home, the RPC’s own tally for the 2025-26 season runs to 21 tournaments, 34 teams, more than 90 entries and 16 exhibition matches, five of them international, and the club was named Best Polo Club at the LaPolo Indian Polo Awards 2025.

The road ahead

Next comes a month-long run in Jaipur. The RPC calendar puts the second leg from November 16 to December 13, and the team’s schedule lists the Kashmir Challenge Cup, the Kota Cup, the HH The Maharaja of Mysore Cup, the Gwalior Cup and the Rao Raja Hanut Singh Polo Cup.

The team then travels to Jodhpur in December for the HH Maharaja of Jodhpur Cup, the Rajputana & Central India Cup and the HH Maharaja of Jodhpur Golden Jubilee Cup, before a third leg at RPC from January 16 to February 28, 2027 that includes the Rajmata Gayatri Devi Memorial Cup, the Kognivera Polo Cup and the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh Polo Cup.

Delhi’s spring season follows in March.

How prominently the lights will feature in the legs to come has not been spelled out, though the club says its newly installed floodlights mean the game is “no longer confined to the hours of the sun”.

Pacho’s own ambitions reach beyond the scoreboard. Looking three to five years out, he said, “I hope that the participation in the sport can continue to grow. I hope that more and more young people take to the sport, find interest in the sport.”

He wants polo’s effect on Rajasthan’s tourism community, “hotels, but also shopkeepers, jewellers, etc.”, to be “explored” and “appreciated”, and for the game to have an impact “much bigger than just a sport”.

Polo, he says, shapes its players beyond the saddle. “I think it’s the care and the empathy that polo teaches you because of the animals that we deal with,” he said.

“Generally people that play polo are very kind people. Because we care about these animals. We look after them day and night. And they don’t speak.”

The winning Jaipur Polo team (centre) can be seen amid the crowds after winning the RPC Cup at the Rajasthan Polo Club ground in Jaipur, Rajasthan on September 7, 2026. Firstpost via Jaipur Polo

A handful of floodlit evenings does not make a season, and the test of night polo as a lasting draw lies in the legs to come. But Pacho’s own measure is the simplest one.

“I’ve seen this bring a lot of joy to people. People have enjoyed this. They’ve come back again and again,” he said.

“It really heartens me to see people walking away with stories that they witnessed on the polo ground, with smiles on their faces.”

For a player who says the sport has given him so much joy, it is “very heartening”, he added, to see others “starting to see it the way that I’ve seen it all along”.

Firstpost has been extensively following the Indian sport of modern polo and has resumed its coverage for the 2026-27 Indian Polo Season which is currently running from September 2026 to April 2027.