Polo club

That used to be one of my regular drinking haunts in Bexleyheath, yes I’m showing my age. Well, with the onset of age and remembering the only horses I ever saw in Catford belonged to the rag and bone man, I have in my adult years taken a keen interest in the ponies, in various formats, and been lucky enough to have been to a couple of polo matches previously.

Of course I don’t really understand it, but I am intuitive enough to realize that it is not easy sat upon a thoroughbred horse galloping at a hundred miles an hour trying to swat a small ball with a stick.

Sarasota Polo Club was founded in 1991, although polo on these Floridian ranches has much deeper roots. The Club sits on 140 acres on the west coast of Florida as part of the famed Lakewood Ranch master community and is one of 300 thriving Polo Clubs in the United States and today we went to witness the last day of the season, which only starts in January.

The skies had the devil in them, but it managed to stay dry throughout the afternoon at the Sarasota Polo Club and the sun on rare glimpses warmed the 1,500 or so people I estimated to be sat around the polo field and in the clubhouse. It was the last game of the season and families had come prepared laden with tents, tables, barbecues, drinks and pet dogs.

There was also a large, and I couldn’t work out why, Celtic group, all dressed up, and with whom I took a shot with early on in the proceedings much to my daughter’s bewilderment. There was also a fair smattering of English people there, which was less surprising knowing the make-up of Sarasota’s evoluting population.

Polo players are based on a global handicap system dependent on a number of factors such as skill, horsemanship, strategy, knowledge of polo, team play and sportsmanship. The highest level is 10, and only a handful of players in the world hold this distinguishment, and they are mostly Argentinan, considered to be the seat of the polo world. The lowest score of a player is -2. Today two 5 score players competed, Francesco Bibao from Argentina and the USA’s Alan Martinez, both alongside South African Stuart Campbell (4 handicap) were getting most of the plaudits from a humorous, if not a particularly PC commentator.

The four-aside game is split between eight-four minute chukkas, with four minute breaks in between although much more at half-time when the field is invaded by families and it becomes a bit of a fairground. Treading back grass divots is also de rigueur, and somehow my daughter managed to snuffle a ball, which is about the size of a baseball but made off plastic and misshapen due to mallets taking big whacks at it.

The whole game including introductions, breaks and general stoppages took about 2 hours but there was a lot to take your attention, not less the great skill of those on horseback. One team, don’t ask me which, won 10-9 and a trophy was delivered outside the club house to some loud cheers that had clearly been fuelled by an afternoon (the gates open at 9am) of drinking. We took ourselves off home at that point but we will return to this rather nice way to spend an afternoon.