The Polo Report
By Steve Crowder

Well who knows it has been raining for 5 days on the coast of California?   I doubt it is summer time.

Polo however is looking toward a wild and good winter on both coasts and hopefully warmer. It was the coldest day in history in FL on Dec. 15 when it reached 19 degrees F. Well here it has been the wettest Dec. in history and it has been a bit of a odd year. Our warmest day of the year was at the end of Sept. about a 100 F so go figure.

No matter what Polo will go on and even in these hard times the Desert menu is awesome as the clubs bargain for Players and Patrons. We do, however, need to stop and think about this for a minute.  Yes competition is always good, but bad things can happen on deals and the answer is to work together no matter what in some ways. Stop the problems NOW.

The problem is as I see it are the Polo people who thrive on this type of polo …  they pay nothing, feed horses less, hire the cheapest grooms and make the sport hard to defend. I know you will say I always knock low goal Polo, but that is not true. All players have to start somewhere, and it is not at the TOP.

I do think these people make low goal polo bad. They play on 2 horses, hire grooms to play for nothing, put them on dangerous horses and cause many people to quit Polo. Like I like to say … if you can afford to play Polo you can definitely afford not to be in this sport. This is where I see the problem this year in the Desert. There are a lot of deals and there are going to be a lot of these people who show up for these deals. The Horses and Grooms are going to suffer early, but the Clubs will as well. The Clubs will and can survive without these people and they must for their own good. They play 2 horses stick and ball everyday, demand 10 times what the other Players request and never help anyone. They are true cancers to the game. For years that is why if you wanted to play real polo it was 8-goal and 6 chukkars.  That had to change due to cost and schools which is the growth of Polo … the Schools.

To many people these days are careful and rightly so.  They want to learn the game correctly, not grab a stick and head to the pitch. However, even less now than before, they want to learn to ride and play polo all at once … that is the problem. With a school you can kind of keep them doing the riding with the thought they are learning Polo and all are happy, but without it they stick and ball a week and want chukkars and that is basically impossible. In the end they are wondering why they are paying for something that scares the hell out of them because they do not know what they are doing, and they quit. The answer to this is polo schools and Pros, who want to grow the sport.

Whatever you do as a pro or a Polo rep. remember we need them and they do not need us .
It will be a tough Winter for Polo, so be Happy and have as much fun as you can and remember as well to help the clubs as they are helping us.  Do not abuse it, use it to improve and if you cannot or will not please, leave it for others who care.

See ya.