World’s Oldest Polo Player Pursues Equestrian Passion At 85, Ed Robbins, top right, rides three days a week to keep in shape for his favorite sport. He holds the Guinness World Record as the oldest active polo player.
By Rebecca Oliver
E
ach morning, 85-year-old Ed Robbins, the world’s oldest active polo player, continues a lifelong love of horses as he watches thoroughbreds complete workouts on his Lauderdale County polo and racehorse farm. “Polo is such a small sport, a lot of people call it a cult,” said Robbins, who lives in Rogersville. “There are only three to 4,000 polo players in the United States.” A polo match on May 21, 2016, when he was 84 years and 326 days old, cemented his Guinness World Record as the oldest active polo player. Robbins was raised around ponies and walking horses but didn’t become interested in polo until 1980 when he converted a cornfield and gravel pit into Peytona Farms, home of Blue Water Creek Polo Club and Centaur Racing. Alabama doesn’t have a “horse culture” like Kentucky, Robbins said, but that didn’t stop him from pursuing his polo passion. With four horseback players on a team, the objective is to move the polo ball downfield, hitting it w w w. A l f a F a r m e r s . o r g
through a goal to score. Polo fields are the largest field of any organized sport, measuring 300 yards by 160 yards. Games are generally six chukkers (or time periods) long. Each chukker lasts 7 1/2 minutes, and Blue Water Creek Polo occasionally hosts 4-chukker polo games. Robbins said he received his indoctrination into the polo world at a polo clinic in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where movie star Tommy Lee Jones shared a nugget of wisdom. “He told me, ‘If you don’t get out of my way, I’m going to run over you,’” Robbins remembered. “When I first started playing, my mallet felt like a log in my hand. I had to adjust pretty fast.” A member of the United States Polo Association since December 1981, Robbins is now an accomplished player and formed Blue Water Creek Polo Club to foster his hobby. The club’s 19 members practice Thursday afternoons on Robbins’ fields and have matches in May, June, September and October. Robbins said polo players have good hand-eye 18
December 2016