The Polo Report
By Steve Crowder

I have been in Palm Beach for a while, but just got back tonight to CA.  I realized wearing a Texas Polo hat can get a lot of attention and maybe not the best, as the reason was John Goodman.   I sat talking to some people at the airport while waiting for my plane. They asked questions that were all about reports that John Goodman was a big shot Texan. It made me laugh as I said to them “first you would never know John was a Texan and you surely would not know he was a rich and a very big person wherever he might be.” John just was not that way anytime I was around him ,which is not a lot,  but I have known him since the 90’s. I knew he was a Patron, so I was sure he was not a gardner, but I would have never guessed he would do more for the sport of polo than anyone else has since the 80’s when John Oxley and Bill Ylvisaker took the reins and led the USA back into the limelight of the Polo World. However after they both grew old and tired of supporting it at their level Polo was going down hill fast. Palm Beach shut nearly down in the late 90’s and Boca was tired and run down when J.T. Oxley passed away.  The huge financial empire of Wellington looked pretty bleak. They still had the Horse Show as it was no longer a piece of the PBP&RC,  but huge chunks of land and millions of dollars were about to disappear. It was John Goodman who stepped up, almost totally on his own if not completely, and gambled on Polo.  It was fantastic and what is today …. a Polo Mecca giving life to 1,000’s of people from dentists to contractors and many other businesses in the community.  It brought business not just the polo people, but the people who live there 365 days a year.

All this time I just thought John Goodman was a Houston-based businessman, which he was. He was always friendly to me and my family. He always said nice things about the kids and even came to California one time and had a tornado tear-up a barn and several horses. He was upset and never came back.  Just like anyone else, he was was very upset that several horses were hurt because of facilities not properly built for the intended purpose. That does not sound like a bad person rich or not. I have heard stories that he does not tolerate any abuse to horses at all and will terminate on the spot for a guilty person doing anything he thinks is wrong.  That is not the sign of a bad person. I am not saying he did not make a mistake.  There are very few if any of us who can say we have not been there … we just got lucky and some didn’t.  We all know it is a fact of life.

John Goodman as I see him a very conscientiousness person who will suffer everyday of his life just because of what happened. This is something that could happen to any of us anytime, but because he is a well-to-do individual and high on the list, it may be just too much for ambitious political people to pass over.  Yet they will never try a Congressman for sending thousands of young Men and Women to a war with no upside. I do not get it.  What would this be if he was not RICH?   Some politicians trying to gain from it, sad but forgotten by most, but not John  Goodman, whether he was rich or poor ? Think about it  for a few minutes. We (the polo community) would not be here if he had not been here to support polo in our time of need.  We would have no place to play polo.

see ya