Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Fauquier County is Polo Country
If polo brings to mind fancy dresses and huge hats, tony crowd stomping divots between chukkers in polished Italian loafers and Manolo Blahnik flats, think again.
In the Virginia countryside the world's oldest team sport mixes down-home with debonair, horse sweat and leather combining in equal measure with gin and tonic.
Proving polo is perhaps a sport of kings but one crafted for the people, Great Meadow in The Plains will kick off its regular Saturday Twilight Polo series May 30, play continuing weekly through September.
“We've got a ton in store this summer,” said Great Meadow Polo manager John Gobin, an 8-goal player who led his team to victory as MVP in the Miami Polo tournament on South Beach this winter. “The Bermuda grass field is greening up, we've got a big opening night planned, and we're crazy busy getting ready for our biggest season ever.”
Gobin said that Great Meadow's polo tradition, starting with an enclosed stadium in 1990 and expanding to include the Willow Run Polo School, practice fields, a full-sized world-class field and a vibrant league, is complemented by the growth of the sport around the region.
“We're not in competition with each other,” Gobin said of other clubs and venues that have sprouted in the area. “We complement each other. The more players and students you have, the more games you'll get and the more pros will base in the area.”
That, he added, spawns better, higher-goal tournaments and regular play that entices more fans which creates a bigger base for the sport. “And so on,” Gobin said. “It's getting huge.”
Explaining polo
The first recorded game of a mounted team sport took place in 600 BC between Turkomans and Persians (the Turkomans won). In the fourth century AD, King Sapoor II of Persia learned to play at age 7.
In the 16th century, a polo field of sorts — 300 yards long and with goalposts at each end— was built at Ispahan, then the capital, by Shah Abbas the Great.
Embraced by military worldwide, the game is a product of 1,000 years of breeding and training of the horse and has evolved into an organized sport and business. Today, the sport of polo is played in two formats: arena and outdoor, or field, polo. The concepts are similar but the playing surfaces and the rules are slightly different.
Arena polo, is played with three players per team on an enclosed, surfaced field 150 by 300 feet. Four seven and a half-minute chukkers are played.
Riders change horses at the end of each period in higher-goal games, though not always at league or lower level play...See the Wednesday print edition of the Fauquier Times-Democrat for the complete story.
You must be logged in to post a comment.