Learning polo
Ready to play polo This afternoon I joined the MBA class from the Saïd Business School at Oxford on a polo training outing. One of the members of my MCR at Pembroke, Pippa Grace, is president of the International Womens Polo Association; her family has for years been teaching people of all skill levels (including such neophytes as myself) to play polo at their Ascot Park Polo Club.
We went through various practical training segments: crates (where we stand on a crate and practice hitting a polo ball with a polo stick), horses (where we practice riding our mount; mine was named Norway), short sticks (where we play polo without horses), and theory (where we learn the rules and tactics of polo). Today was my first time riding a horse, but Norway was a good horse and responded well to my commands, although he didn’t want to accelerate when I wanted to; perhaps he knew better! The more successful riders in the practical session were chosen to play in two chukkas (a chukka is a 7-minute round of polo; there are 4 or 6 in a competition). Although I was not chosen to play in a match, I still had a wonderful time.
Pippa Grace on a polo pony Interesting things I learned today: in a match, players switch horses every chukka, or even during a chukka, so most teams (of four) have about 18 horses for a single match; a team is usually formed of two professionals, one non-professional (but still good) player, and the patron, the person who pays for the whole team, but may not be any good him/herself. I also learned that my friend Pippa has a 1 handicap (on a scale of -2 to 10). There’s only one woman player in the world with a 4 handicap, and around 2 dozen with handicaps 2 and 3, so she’s quite good. In a bit of cross-referencing, it was Pippa who took the photos of me from yesterday’s matriculation ceremony and who suggested we do tequila shots afterwards. Ahem.
(Interesting) things I did not learn today: more details about Markov chains, part of the work I should have done for my Applied Probability course. But it’s okay, statistics aren’t important.
Comment by mother
Douglas
Somebody asked me if you would ride a horse over there. I said he would never do that. Guess I don’t know everything about you. Anyway, sounds like a great time to be had. Might as well try everything.
Comment by Sister Sarah
Holy Moley!
Nice Picture.. You look like a plunky british composer…. did you fall off the horse???
