SPECTATORS at the polo match.
Esteban Scott ready to strike.
POLO & THE GAME By Diana Pinck | Photography by Peter J. San Chirico
T
h e exact origins of polo are shrouded in ancient history, but it is arguably the oldest team sport of record. The historic Meadowbrook Polo Club was founded in 1877 and incorporated in 1881, which makes it the oldest active polo club in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. Its spectacular center is Hickox Field in the heart of Old Westbury. Polo, the "Game of Kings,” vastly popular in the 20s and 30s, has recently resurged as an exciting and challenging sport and pastime for many. Attend a single match and you will understand the attraction this powerful and elegant game has over the minds and souls of riders and spectators alike.
Believed to be over 2,500 years old, polo was first played by nomadic warriors, most probably to challenge each other and hone fighting and riding skills. The first recorded tournament was in 600 BC, when the Turkomans beat the Persians in a public match. The Persians and Mogul conquerors of India spread the game over the East and throughout Europe. Polo was later imported from India to England, and a few years later it landed on the Eastern shores of the U.S. Watching the polo ponies thunder across the enormous playing field at 35 miles an hour, riders holding mallets high above their head or swinging at the ball while leaning deep over the necks of their ponies, one gets a sense of the primal power of this ancient game.
Polo is played by two opposing teams consisting of four riders each. It is battled out in six, seven-minute chukkers (i.e. ‘rounds’ in Persian). The object of the game is to drive the ball through the goal posts of the opposing team. After each goal, the teams switch sides to even out playing conditions. The rules of polo are quite simple and were created chiefly to protect the ponies and their riders. At half-time the spectators walk out onto the enormous field, approximately eighttimes the size of a football field, and with wellhealed shoes, push in the dibbets broken loose by the hoofs of the ponies and the player’s mallets. This unique tradition also gives the spectators the feeling of having contributed, in the
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