Devereux Milburn played the powerful Jacobs, who was bred in the Southwest.
The big slashing chestnut, Carry the News, was brought from Hawaii by W. D. Baldwin.
ponies in England after the war and (b) the feeling at the time that the height question would settle itself, for “no one would or could ride a big horse” in polo, that is something as big as 15.2 and big horses cost so much to feed. Going back a few years to 1909, when the height limit for polo ponies was lifted and the modern mount began to take shape, we had such brilliant mounts as Louis E. Stoddard’s Kentucky-bred chestnut mare, Belle of All, by Cunard out of a Star Shoot mare, who now has a son and a daughter playing in C.V. Whitney’s string. There were such ponies as the celebrated California-bred Cottontail, played by Harry Payne Whitney in three international series and considered the greatest polo pony that ever lived; and powerful Jacobs from the Southwest, played by Devereux Milburn. In the years that followed came Carry the News, the big slashing chestnut sent up from Hawaii by W. D. Baldwin; and the fleet Gallery Girl from New York’s Genesee Valley. Then too came W.A. Harriman’s truly great Gay Boy, from Texas, who met death when a crashing
plane fell on top of him. The parade of top ponies of American breeding is a long one, and answers enough to the criticisms so often heard in England and in Argentina that we would not be at the top of the polo heap but for the tons of easy money with
which we buy up the best ponies bred and trained in other countries. Consider the wonderful Socks, now 13, who has been playing top polo in J. H. Whitney’s string for so many years, and who still gets into an Open Championship final. Consider Hermosa, by the
During the 1927 International Championships, the American team of Devereux Milburn, Malcolm Stevenson, Thomas Hitchcock Jr. and J. Watson Webb rode only seven out of 25 American-bred horses. They played 13 Argentine-bred horses and five English-bred horses.
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