Return of the Red, White and Blue fest benefits troops @ Eldorado Polo Club (CA)
By DIANE HENSLEY
INDIO – Once again Polo America President Randy Russell will begin the New Year with a benefit for the servicemen and women from Marines from Twentynine Palms Air Ground Combat Center, he said. The Ford Trucks Red, White and Blue Polo and Balloon Fest, hosted at Eldorado Polo Club and Fantasy Springs Resort Casino Jan. 4-6, has become an annual valley event featuring balloon glows and barbecues, fireworks and vendor villages, parties and polo matches.
The festival is one of two back-to-back balloon festival benefits Russell stages that both help—and pay tribute to— local men and women serving in the armed forces. He organizes a second, the Ford Trucks Red, White and Blue Balloon Festival in Las Vegas at the Motor Speedway on Jan. 12-13, which benefits the servicemen and women from Nellis Air Force Base, and has also organized a benefit match in Aiken, S.C., that benefited the troops at Fort Gordon army base.
Admission to both Red, White and Blue festivals is free with a donation.
Russell chose to support the U.S. armed forces as beneficiaries of his events out of a strong sense of patriotism. He has been responsible for sending family members of servicemen who have lost limbs to Bethesda, Md. to help their loved ones on the trip home. Polo America funds have financed food vouchers distributed at base exchanges. Funds have paid house and car payments for a woman who left her job to be at her son’s side after he was critically wounded in an overturned Humvee in battle.
He remains deeply moved and committed to providing aid for American forces in uniform.
“It’s hard to just watch the stories on the news and know how hard it is for families left behind,” Russell said. “We just wanted to do something to help people in the hardship they’ve had to go through.”
Polo and ballooning are pastimes close to Russell who has turned his pursuit of both into business, and with the addition of these two festivals, into benefit. A polo player and hot air balloon pilot, the Polo America proprietor takes pride in turning the red, white and blue into good cheer for the soldiers in green. Touted as the third-largest Special Shape Balloon Festival in the country, the three-day event will showcase 15 special shape balloons and 55 race balloons.
Russell’s benefits have raised funds for the U.S. Marines, Army, and the Air Force.
“Now we just need the Coast Guard to call us and we have them all,” Russell told the PoloZONE.
Festivities begin Friday at Fantasy Springs Resort and Casino with a 3 p.m. mass ascension, expected to be visible in the valley for miles with clear skies. A launch party follows into the night in the casino’s courtyard bar, the Rock Yard with live bands.
Polo matches are scheduled Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Eldorado Polo Club featuring four- and eight-goal January league matches and a special exhibition match planned by Russell. Saturday’s “Battle of the Sexes Polo Game” at noon faces off a men’s team against a women’s team, but with an unusual finale not part of typically U.S.P.A.-sanctioned matches.
Tack will be “stripped” from a mare and a gelding in a symbolic equine characterization of the age-old strip poker game fantasized to decide the battle of the sexes. The last-known Battle of the Sexes occurred in tennis in 1973, pitting Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King at the Astrodome Sept. 20, 1973.
For more information, visit the Fantasy Springs Resort web pages at www.fantasyspringsresort.com or contact Eldorado Polo Club at (760) 342-2223.
Friday, January 4
2:00 PM Gates open Fantasy Springs Resort Casino
3:00 PM Mass ascension
4:00 PM Post launch party carries over in the Rock Yard with live bands
Saturday, January 5
6:00-10:00 AM Food and Vendor Village
6:00 AM Mass ascension from Fantasy Springs Resort Casino
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM Polo games at Eldorado Polo Club
12:00 PM Battle of the Sexes Polo Game
3:00 PM Gates open Fantasy Springs Resort Casino
Johnny James Band and BBQ
5:00 PM Balloon Glow
Sunday, January 6
6:00-10:00 AM Food and Vendor Village
6:00 AM Mass ascension from Fantasy Springs Resort Casino
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM Polo games at Eldorado Polo Club
12:00 PM Ford Trucks Polo Classic
3:00 PM Gates open Fantasy Springs Resort Casino
3:00-5:00 PM Brad Mercer Band and Western Cookout 5:00 PM Balloon Glow
6:15 PM Fireworks Display
Story written By DIANE HENSLEY