It’s true, the arena polo ponies do all the work which is why beginners are able to trot around and get involved after listening to just a few instructions. Indeed after five minutes on the pitch I had forgotten about being on a horse and my main frustration was timing and trying to get to the ball before Nat and his team had smashed it up the other end.
At the top level, arena polo keeps the professional players active during the winter months when the grass pitches are unplayable. England captain James Morrison reckons it’s more physical than the summer game, because all the action is squeezed into a much smaller, enclosed area. ‘It’s more intense and I certainly get a lot more injuries in the winter when playing indoors,’ he said.
Once a year, arena polo is now played in the O2. I took part in a media match there and once again in the comfort of an enclosed, soft pitched arena, my lack of riding experience wasn’t to matter. The pony did all hard bits, cantering up and down while I clung on, trying to enjoy the ride and attempting to get the ball to teammate Kenny Logan, who proved if you can play rugby for your country, you can also cut it in a polo match.
So polo has come within reach. You no longer need your own horse or equipment to swing the mallet these days, and get a taste of the rumble of hooves and smack of ball. It’s become a popular corporate or experience day for a group of mates. Even so, a session won’t leave you much change from £100, but that’s still peanuts compared to the price of some of the four-legged stars of this sport.
For information and to give it a go and for all your polo needs, its www.hpa-polo.co.uk
POLO CROSSE
Arena polo got me involved in the cut and thrust of this fast and furious sport, but it’s fair to say that my time with the ball had been restricted to the odd touch. However, there is a polo game in which you can pick up the ball and run away with it. It was developed in Australia in the 1930s and is called Polocrosse. To get an understanding of this hybrid game, we first need to turn our attention to one of North America’s first team sports, lacrosse.
I admit, that at first I had images of genteel jolly hockey sticks when I turned up for an introduction with some of the country’s top female players at Berkhamsted School. I thought it would be a bit of a run around, throwing and catching the ball with my stick and its net on the end. How wrong could I be. My ignorance didn’t last long and was quickly punished as they put me in the goal to show me the frenetic pace and aggression in this sport. Like a village thief in the stocks I was pelted with balls as they got in some target practice.
Out on the field, as sticks clashed and leaping bodies charged, I could see how this game originated from the American Indians, who used it to prepare for battle just like the early polo players.
In those days, perhaps as far back as the 16th century, the Cherokees called the sport ‘the little brother of war’ because it was seen as such effective military training. Sometimes there were hundreds, even thousands of players on a team, and the goals could be miles apart. It’s no surprise then that a game could last several days. Imagine how long you could go without seeing the ball – so most players got bored and engaged in stick battles with their opponents while they were waiting. There are also reports that early on they used a human skull rather than a ball.
Originally the game was called ‘Baggataway’ or ‘Tewaraathon’, and over the centuries it was scaled down to 15 players on a team, with the goals 120 feet apart.
It was this game that French explorers found. They thought the stick looked like a bishop’s crozier, which is ‘la crosse’ in French, and it seems this is where the name came from. Those early Europeans in Canada organised a team and the first club in Montreal was formed in 1844. It was one of the club members George Beers who rewrote the rules and fixed the teams at 12 a side for women and 10 for men. Thankfully today there are rules and it’s much safer. The ball is still like a bullet. It’s made of hard rubber and is similar in size to a cricket ball. So no wonder I needed protective pads and a helmet as I took that pelting in goal.
The sticks are like hockey ones, but with a net on the end. These allow you to scoop up the ball, catch and carry it, and then fire it out, like you are slinging your hook.
‘Slide your hand down your stick,’ I was advised if I wanted my shots to go faster.
It’s still a game of immense athletic skill. It’s non-stop running, while to outwit your opponents you have to be agile and mentally sharp as well. The game was originally only played by men and it’s claimed that women’s lacrosse stared in Scotland, much later at St Leonards School around 1890. It’s ironic then that now, as Sam Patterson from the England men’s team told me, it often gets generalised as a women’s sport.
Men’s lacrosse today is much closer to the original game. While in the women’s version there is plenty of stick-to-stick action, but full body contact isn’t allowed (although it is sometimes inevitable), in the men’s game, all players have to wear protective armour and helmets, because full contact is permitted. It’s like American football with sticks. It’s one of the best team sports I have sampled. I can see why it’s billed as the fastest game on two feet.
The number of players taking up this sport in all age groups has increased in the last few years, helped by Manchester staging the World Cup in 2010. The USA won and will be favourites to defend their crown on home soil in Denver in 2014. However on the European stage, England currently rule the roost. The men’s team beat Ireland in the final staged in Amsterdam in July 2012, while England’s women beat Wales in their final. There are clubs up and down the country, so to find your nearest, visit one of the following websites: www.waleslacrosse.co.uk, www.lacrossescotland.com, www.irelandlacrosse.ie, www.englishlacrosse.co.uk or www.insidelacrosse.com
So we have polo, and we have lacrosse, two of the roughest and toughest team sports. However, they are not enough for those who put them together to make Polocrosse. It’s the challenge of lacrosse but on horseback, while for polo players it’s a chance to chuck in a chukka, to scoop the ball up and run with it before unleashing a shot, not from down by the horse’s side, but from up above the shoulders.
It’s a team sport that is now played all over the world. There are six riders on each side, with three from each team on the pitch at a time, and they swap after every six-minute chukka to give the horses a rest. Instead of a mallet, each rider carries a cane stick with a racquet head on the end of it. It looks like a very long squash racquet but the net on the head is loose. The ball is made of sponge rubber. The other big difference from polo is that in this sport, players only use one horse for the duration of the match. They don’t swap ponies during the game.
It is a bit like going onto a battlefield when you ride out in your helmet and the balls drop out of the sky like falling meteors. Scooping the ball off the ground while moving is also a challenge, but if you are a beginner like I was when I attended a Polocrosse centre in Kent, you play the game at trotting or even walking pace. It claims to be a sport for everyone. While at the top level it is physical and fast, at novice level it is played at a much slower speed. Regardless of ability you will be able to get the ball, and it is increasingly seen as a more entertaining way to develop riding skills. That’s how it all started.
One of the UK’s star players, Jason Webb, says the idea caught on at polo clubs because it was a way to spice up training sessions. ‘You can only hit a ball so far, and back in the day a lot of the riding was done in schools, and so you’d only get to hit the ball once and it would be up the other end of the pitch, whereas in Polocrosse you can do so much more with it: you can shimmy it around and carry it,’ he explained.
It’s also more suitable for riding schools with limited space, and it appeals to beginners because you can pick the ball up and run with it, rather than getting just one swing at the ball before you have passed it by. It is now recognised by the Pony Club as a horse sport which improves riding skills.
There is a knack to scooping up the ball when moving on a horse,