Anyone for Polo?

As soon as I saw the ad for this I was hooked. How Argentinian is this sport, known the world over of which this country is rated one of the best?

The ad describes how you go out to a ranch, watch a game of polo, drink Argentinian wine, have a traditional Argentinian BBQ, swim in the pool if you like, learn the rules of engagement then actually play a game of polo.  Who wouldn’t want to do this – it sounds bloody awesome. 

Ready or not

As I jump on the transfer bus, I greet everyone and introduce myself. We are a group of 11 and there are two other couples at the ranch when we arrive.  We’re immediately offered a glass of wine and take a seat outside the sheds on some comfy sofa’s. Our host for the day is Paolo (a rather good looking chap) who takes us through and introduces us to the game of Polo.

What’s all this Polo stuff about?

Apparently, it originated in Persia with Genghis Khan as their training ground for war; riding and controlling a horse with one hand whilst yielding a sword in the other running through the enemy trying to decapitate them as you go. Charming.  However I can see how this evolved. Over the years it then became big in India during a time when the Poms had control, then they are the ones that took it back to England and introduced it to Europe and the western world and it continued to evolved into the sport it is today. Interesting huh? 

The one thing that I got from Paolo from his talks is how veeeeeeery expensive Polo is as a sport.  All the equipment is veeeeeeeery expensive, The horses, the travel, the people required…. veeeery expensive. I get it, it costs a penny or three,  however he did say that this sport attracts ‘la chickas’ and looking around our group here today he was not wrong. 

Besides being expensive what else do we need to know?

So we are taken through the game, how it’s played, the rules, things to look out for, the equipment and a few tricks of the trade. Our glasses are re-filled and we head off to one of the fields on the ranch to watch a game. Normally there are 4 horses to a team but given the rain that has fallen in BA over the past month we have to go to a smaller field so they are only playing with 3 per side as 4 horses each on this field would apparently be too much. 

There will be 4 chukkas (periods of playing time) of 7 minutes each. This is considered a short game. Some games can be up to 12 Chukkas. At the end of each chukka, the riders MUST change horses (a polo horse is called a PONY). This is because the ponies are going hell for leather for 7 minutes straight, sprinting, stopping, changing directions, having balls run into their legs whilst being shoved by other ponies in defence.

Consider how hard a thoroughbred horse is panting and sweating after a 1m30s race and that horse is just going in a rather large circle? Then consider that the Polo ponies don’t have a pint sized 48kg jockey on their backs for a short period of time, but fully grown men and women on their backs – man – Kerry Packer used to play Polo so how much would his pony have wanted a break after 7 minutes!  

So imagine if you are a professional playing a 12 chukka game : 4 players all needing to change ponies at the end of each chukka:  (quick maths) ends up being A LOT of ponies needed for the professional game, thus the reason it is an expensive outing. Our guys here also change at the end of each chukka. It’s the law.

In between chukka’s we have different activities to do 

• Learn to swing our mini polo sticks in the right way so we don’t end up doing tennis shots and hitting our pony’s in the legs, or another player for that matter. We are given some plastic balls to practice with. Some people have far too much energy with their apparent  ‘taps’ of the ball, to the point where we had to say: ‘INCOMING – DUCK’. Hopefully they won’t get too energetic during the game.
• Meet the Pony’s and their riders and get comfortable with being around them
• We are split into two teams facing each other, each of us with a mini polo stick and then a bell is placed in the middle. Our aim is to hit the bell with the plastic balls as many times as possible, learning to try and hit for a goal. My side did pretty well apparently, beating the others and I felt proud to have contributed the fabulous total of 1 hit in the overall team score of 18. 

All this is done with a wine glass in hand (I was drinking the black doctor at this stage (coke) as I decided that drinking before I got onto a horse to play a game I have never tried before would not be a terribly smart thing – others didn’t seem to mind at all). 

The game being played on the field in front of us was as I remember seeing it at the Polo games in Sydney – far fewer ‘glam’ peeps there drinking bubbles till they fall over but it was great to watch all the same.

It’s a physical game with riders jostling with other ponies for the ball, trying to get the ball out of the muddy sections of the field before the opposition has time to get to you, and with Paolo pointing out when people have ‘hooked’, ‘blocked’ done a backward hit (all of which we learned at the start of the day) the whole game started to make a lot more sense.

I’ve grown up with horses around the family and I have a huge respect for them. These horses really do go through such physical activity in this game – I’m fascinated and watch with keen interest.

Still no game but we have time for lunch

Game over, the ranch owners team won by 1 goal I think, then we all traipse across the muddy fields to the shed where the BBQ lunch awaits.  Another typically Argentinian thing they promote is how good their meat is. They love their steaks and their meat BBQ’s (asada) so vegetarians and vegans beware.  Today was no different and there was a plethora of meat being cooked up over the course of a few hours. Apparently for a BBQ here in Aegentina they estimate 1kg of meat per person atrtending the BBQ. 1kg! That is a truck load of meat, who eats 1kg of meat.  This is another thing I have noticed – portions are large here, too big really that I have seen alot of meat go to waste. People simply cant finish a dish on their own. If you go to a Parrilla my advice is order one meal btween two. 

One of the pieces they served was juicy and gorgeously salty. Yum.  Overall though, from all my time in Argentina and the meat I have eaten, I have to agree that their meat is fine. I wouldn’t say it was absolutely fantastic because I do believe in Australia we have some of the best meat in the world, so Argentina have had a hard time convincing me that theirs is some of the best in the world when I know for a fact that we are right up there with them, if not, better than them in this field. hands down.  So whilst tasty most of the time, I think Oz does pretty well. Just sayin’ is all. 

Time to get started

Anyhoo, back to Polo. Lunch is done and now it’s time to get ready. We are given a helmut, a ‘bib’  so you know what team you are on, shin protectors and a stick.  We may look the part but lord help us when we get out there as to how this get up actually helps us.

We are then lined up with a horse and are helped on by the farmhands. Onto the field we go to have some practice time. As it turns out many of the people on the tour here today have experience with horse riding. Some of them look like they were born on a horse. There’s one other guy and I who are last to be given our pony’s and we are probably the least experienced of everyone out there. I have ridden a horse about 4 or 5 times in my life but the last time was when I was about 24, so this was going to be interesting.

How you hold your reins is really important apparently

We had about 30 mins to practice handling the horse with the reins always held in your left hand in a very particular way, the stick in your right and steering the horse whilst maintaining balance as you leaned down to hit the ball. There were a number of swing and a miss  moments – and I mean a number of swing and miss, but the farm hands were around to get the ball back in front of us and our horses so we could have another go and continue in a pretty straight line. 

We were told that the ponies know we are beginners and may take advantage of that. If you can manage your horse – you can control its movements, if not, it may be a little harder. Some of them may just want to go to the food shed and have some dinner.

I don’t think my pony liked me

Seems I confused my poor pony quite a bit (they are very well trained that with the slightest manoeuvre of the reigns they will go left or right) as I think the reigns were too loose at one stage and my poor pony moved his head left when I wanted it to go right, so I change the reigns and he turned his head back left again. In the end the pony was just standing there looking like he was shaking his head from left to right (as if saying no) as I tried to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Oh dear!

Anyway, I did finally manage to figure out the reigns, hit some balls, follow the ball and hit it again so I think I did ok with that. I felt comfortable and had some confidence  (I was actually still on the horse) and was looking forward to the game. 

Let the games begin

Now when I say game time, it’s not GAME TIME as in we’re sprinting up the field weilding our sticks….. noooooooo, we were practically walking the whole time. Except if you were some of the people in the group who could ride as they were the ones that could go pretty fast to get the ball and hit it back in the general direction where the rest of us were who were still trying to get our ponies to move in the original direction, let alone change to the new direction. If you were watching it would akin to watching a 100m zimmer frame final at the Olympics. Painful. 

Given the earlier game had only 3 per team, we were more like 7 people per team so there were horses everywhere! Trying to get in on the action was pretty daunting as first as there are a lot of inexperienced people with wooden sticks being brandied about and again, I had signed away my life to play this. However, when there weren’t to many people, I tried to get as close as I could.  

The other girls that could ride were right in there having a massive go and doing really well against some of the ranch players, one of whom was an older guy on the opposite team who to me was always in the action and getting the ball all the time. I kind of felt that he was in the action too much and because of that it changed the direction of the game so often that those of us who were trying to get to where the ball was, was hard and slow enough before he then got in a changed the direction again. So there were a lot of slow trudging up and down, and up and down the field whilst others were all in the action.

What’s wrong with my pony?

At times my pony just refused to go anywhere despite the fact that I was giving it a kick, moving the reins forward and willing it to go, but it just wouldn’t. I seriously think it was having a ‘scoobydoo’ moment to itself … laughing it’s scoobydoo head off at me for being such an incompetent rider. Come on horse, forward, go, move, YA.!  

Nada. Zip. Nothing. Dead still.  

Paolo came over and checked out what I was doing and advised me to hold the reigns a little higher. So I did and the bugger moved straight away! I don’t know how long I was sitting there trying everything I could, and all I needed to do was put the reigns higher and more forward. Seriously. 

Eh hem, moving on

I did get quite confident toward the end of the game and was in there trying to get the ball. There were a few breakaway moments from the really good American girl on my team who was clearly an excellent rider. I was about 20m to her right and decided to have some fun and yelled – Go wide, go wide… I was in the clear and a good shot from her toward the front of my horse meant I might actually hit the ball at least once during the game. Go wide (i.e.: Kick it to me).

I was getting up a little speed, more than 0.004km/hr by this stage, I even tightened the thighs, raised up a little to get to a canter all the time watching where the action was and ready to finally get in the game. I don’t think they heard me anyway which was probably a good thing as when I tried to rise up from the saddle to speed up…… the horse stopped dead again. It just stopped running and stood there. Seriously? It.Did.Not.Move!

The front section of players all continued fast down the side line, then those, who like me had slow walking horses, also passed me and there I was, still not moving. I was in front of everyone else at one stage and now all bar 3 of them were in front of me. Bloody funny, I could not stop laughing. A farm hand came up behind and tapped the pony on the bum with his stick and it moved again.

I gave him a cheeky smile and laughed my head off as I ‘sunday drive’ myself back up to where everyone else is, only to see them all coming back my way because the opposition got the ball again. Ah schite and bugger!  I turn my horse around again in the right direction and go wide , this time to get out of everyone’s way and just enjoy the rest of the game. 

Is it over yet?

Given that there were only about 2 people (plus Paolo) on my team who could actually do anything with their horses, the other team won by about 3,000 goals.

Many of us commented on how lovely it was to walk up and down a polo field for an hour, not touching the ball, but have an absolutely marvelous time doing it. What an hilarious day, my bum hurts and I am sure I am not going to be able to walk tomorrow but it was such a new, unique experience and so much fun.

We were all pretty proud of ourselves mostly for actually not falling off the horses, but also for having a go at something so very different to our everyday lives.

This is why I love travel

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

Perhaps the coming weeks could be a challenge to achieve this. Go do something you have never tried or done before. It’s such an amazing feeling. I know that travel gives you more chances to do this but if you look around close to home, opportunities abound each day. You just have to open your eyes a bit – take the blinkers off and and have a go.

Travel is the best.