Polo as a luxury sport

Sweaty players astride panting horses are not images that traditionally inspire thoughts of luxury, but polo has always garnered royal treatment. It is a game of skill, where sport becomes an art and where sweat has been accorded a princely spot and macho competitiveness is .

 Often referred to as the Sport of Kings, Polo is the quintessential luxury pursuit. Now appropriated by the English, Polo’s beginnings are in fact more worldly than English local. Polo, that most English of sports, actually has much more international origins. The Chinese and Persians were the first to play the game over 2,000 years ago. It is believed that the Mongols took the game east and when British tea planters arrived in the 1850s and took to the game like fish to water, or like a horse to his stable. The British then made it their own and established the first polo club in Silchar, which is situated to the west of Manipur. In fact, what will further establish its Oriental credentials is that the world’s oldest polo club is in India: the Calcutta Club was founded in 1862.

The game was originally played with almost no rules and for lack of a better name, was called as hockey on horseback. The game earned a formal title only in the 1870s, when John Watson of the 13th Hussars established the present rules. Around this time, Monmouthshire, the first English Polo club, was established in 1872 by Captain Francis “Tip” Herbert of the 7th Lancersat his brother’s estate at Clytha Park, near Abergavenny. Soon, the game’s popularity spread and today, polo is played in over 77 countries, most notably in Argentina, USA, Mexico, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Polo however, is still played either by genuine connoisseurs or more often by the supremely wealthy, earning it a reputation of being the domain of kings and nobles rather than as a sport that test your guts and grit. It may be for the gently bread but it is not for the faint-hearted. The ponies are not in fact, gentle creatures of a sweet temperament meant for little girls as fashionable pets; their size and speed is enough to make all doubts about the nature of the sport to rest. It is quick, intense, demands bravery from its patrons and skill on horseback.

Polo may be fit for royalty, but it brings to mind images of warriors who enjoyed a luxurious life, but were equally appreciative of a hard fight.