If any of you is a polo player or a big polo fan avoid reading this article though it may have its “pearls”. If any of you…others…who don’t know that much about this sport, and are listening about how great it is and that you shouldn’t miss the finals of the Palermo Open on Saturday 6th December, here goes a simple guide about the sport, its atmosphere and how and why is this sport of kings is so huge in land of “barbarians”.
A polo match is divided into eight terms of seven minutes each, if the ball stops the clock stops, so for 7 x 8 minutes you will see pure equine adrenaline. Two teams of four players each, all f***ing brilliant Argentine polo players. For this sport there is a handicap from 0 to 10, zero is for beginners, 10 for a small bunch of selected players. In history 97% of top players were and are 100% Argentine beef.
There is a big field so that horses can run at high speed and a goal at each end. The speed written as a passive word in last sentence is possibly one of the highlights of any polo game, but in Argentine Palermo Open, by far the most important tournament in the world and the trophy which every single polo player on earth dreams, the speed is extreme, there is no way you can imagine such a brusque and aesthetic spectacle.
Why Argentina? The reasons are not that evident, the English learnt it in Pakistan or India and brought it to Argentina possibly by the end of 19th century. In my opinion as horses were so important in Argentina, because of Indians and gauchos, and the pampas such a good “home” for this loyal quadruple, as soon as all equine wars and civil wars came to an end, the simple fact of being able to play a game, which after all seemed simple for expert riders, was sufficiently cool to practise it regularly, and most of all not that expensive.
More history (absolutely deduced, absolutely not studied). A couple of English families, began raising polo ponies in Argentina and they began playing this English sport in English clubs such as the Hurlingham Club in Buenos Aires, etc. Little by little these English sons born in Argentina started to play tournaments and some curious and wealthy Argentine aristocratic families offered to their young sons the chance to have horses and as always enjoying European customs as in architecture, they loved the fact of being able to have polo playing in their estancias and private clubs.
But what happened? Polo became so good that was played very frequently, breeders made of the polo pony an industry that became in our days the Argentine polo horse, Argentine polo players used their skills on the horse and the benefits of the land in their advantage and quickly were known as the best polo players in the world.
The sport had been played amateur until two decades ago, when for the first time in history (as far as I know) a polo shirt had the logo of a brand, and became the Marlboro polo team formed by the Heguy brothers. Speaking of families, another typical polo thing is that most of the teams were and are formed by brothers, often this teams are the most difficult to beat as it is impossible to have a team that has trained for as long, though their integrants are on average 20 years old, they had been practising for 15 years.
To conclude, and to recommend, this next Saturday 6th, as I said will take place the final in the polo field of Palermo, which is the icing on the cake of Polo itself. The invitation may be extended, as this weekend the semi-finals will take place to decide who will be playing the last game the other week.
What you are able to see, is something you will never see in any other country of the world, I know we Argentines love to say we are the best in many subjects, but I must admit, and I am not friend of exaggerations, that polo in Argentina is the best in the whole world. The invitation is made, do not miss it, Palermo after all its not only a neighbourhood of restaurants.