Polo came back to town. Bet you didn’t know that Camden, South Carolina had a polo field. We they do. The filed hasn’t been used as a polo field in many years. This year they had a polo match.
I don’t know anything about polo but when my horse friends invited me to come to a polo match, I couldn’t say no. My friends have a large farm and board horses. They have hunters and jumpers and thoroughbreds. Like every hobby, there is a secret language involved. It’s fun to hear the tales of transporting, caring for and racing, jumping, hunting and caring for these majestic animals.
Polo started two thousand years ago by the Persians and is called the sport of kings because it takes quite a bit of effort to have enough horses to be involved in a polo match. I didn’t quite get all the rules down but the match consists of a seven-minute chukka and then the rider changes horses. It takes a king to afford a sport like this. In modern terms it requires a big 35000 fossil eating dually pickup with a five horse trailer with attached camper to transport the horses, equipment and the people to tend to all this. It’s not a cheap sport.
The rules do include penalties for “hooking” and some other things and an umpire rides around on a horse to make sure the rules are followed. I’ll have to watch a lot more polo to understand what is really going on.
The best part for me was the seating. I was sitting with my friends in a VIP tent. You could walk ten feet and be at the edge of the polo field or walk twenty feet and be at the buffet table.
You watch horse run up and down the field for the seven minutes and then you go to the buffet table while the riders change horses. That suited me just fine.
At the middle of the match, people go out on the field to stomp the divots made in the field. That is just like you saw on the Pretty Woman movie. Julia Roberts and Richard Geer were not there. It was still neat to walk out in the middle of a big field with nattily dressed people and kids running around. Then it was bag to the buffet to be with sartorially eloquent people drinking Champaign and enjoying the sport of kings and all the benefits of a wonderful fall afternoon.
I did try to figure out what was happening and how the game was really played. Were the players trying to go where the ball is or where it isn’t? There was some of both. Sometimes you are behind the ball and other times you are switched over with the hit of the ball. It is going to take me a lot more matches to figure out what is really happening.
Too quickly the matches were over and it was time to drive home through the long shadows at the end of a beautiful fall day. I didn’t learn much about polo but what a day with good friends, newly made friends and a wonderful chance to be at a new venue enjoying food and fellowship. Also, who knows many of these people could be kings and queens. What a day and what a sport.
