Polo sport

In this column three weeks ago, I discussed one of the most exclusive domains left in the wide world of sports?golf. However, there just might be a sport even more crouched in tradition, even more discriminating in its membership and even more mindful of its upturned nose. That game is polo, a sport involving big horses, little balls and long sticks.

But beyond the princes and other assorted blue-bloods, Georgetown University also has a tradition in the polo realm: During the 1950s, Hoya polo teams strung together several undefeated seasons, before falling dormant for decades. It wasn’t until the past few years that the tradition was resurrected to a shade of its former glory.

When Oriana Wuerth (CAS ‘04) came to Georgetown, there was an informal club of four or five students. Today, the Georgetown Polo Club, which remains unsponsored by the University, has around 20 active members and has successfully returned to intercollegiate play.

The club is based at the Gone Away Farm in Poolesville, Md., where its horses are stabled and its matches are held. Though the horses in polo matches are often former thoroughbred race horses, they are still referred to as “ponies.” Currently, the club has 10 ponies at its disposal, of which it owns seven, with names ranging from the staid Custer and Buffalo to the exotic Milonghita and Rico Suave.

Collegiate polo is played in a scaled-back format known as “arena polo.” The field is a smaller, there aren’t as many players, play is faster-paced and games are higher scoring. Games are divided into four seven-and-a-half minute periods, called “chukkers.” In a given chukker, half the ponies are in play and half are resting. “Part of the challenge of college polo is that you’re given this horse and have like two minutes to get to know it,” said Wuerth, who is the club’s current co-president. “Sometimes they’ll say ‘Don’t touch its butt, or it’ll buck you off.’”

Getting “bucked” is just one of the dangers?polo is undeniably intense and treacherous. The U.S. Polo Association website claims that is “one of the fastest, roughest, and most dangerous sports played today.” Wuerth described one common playing tactic called “riding off,” when one horse runs into another to prevent a shot. “If someone doesn’t know what they’re doing, it can get scary,” she said. As a result, one of the greatest expenses is proper insurance.

There is a good reason polo is considered a rich man’s game: It’s damned expensive. Horses ain’t cheap?a decent polo pony starts at around $10,000. Add a $1,000 saddle, a $500 bridle, a $100 bamboo mallet, plus $500 per month for food, shelter and exercise and it’s soon clear that even if you’re paying MasterCard, nothing in polo is priceless. According to Wuerth, Georgetown Polo Club has managed to get around many of those costs through donations. The club pays $1,000 per month to feed, house and exercise their 10 horses, well below the average cost.

Wuerth points out that Georgetown polo has little to do with the real world of staid tradition. While other college clubs have members from old-line “polo families,” only two members of the GU Polo Club had ever played the game before joining the club. Dues are $250, a modest price for regular riding, playing and instruction. Still worried you don’t know how to play? Though riding experience is helpful, just sign up, said Wuerth. “You pay your $250 and I teach you how.”

Georgetown polo is well on the way to breaking the sport’s aristocratic mold. The club’s membership includes students of diverse backgrounds, evenly split between men and women. Thus far, the club has proven triumphant against one bastion of East coast elitism: In its first match of the year, the club defeated Yale 5-4. Rico Suave couldn’t have been happier.