It’s a faintly familiar alien world. My new polo chums are just like my old schoolmates, but I’ve been around the world ten times and they haven’t. They are like the cast of a Merchant Ivory movie, and I’m from another planet. They are very impressed that I’m a Millfield boy, which surprises me. My old school was no Eton. It was most notable for the raffishness of the parents (King of Thailand, Elizabeth Taylor, various bin Ladens, and other nouveaux riches) but also for its sports programs. In the polo world, Millfield is second in prestige only to Sandhurst. In fact I soon learn that one of the biggest heroes of English polo is none other than my old school buddy Sniffer Kent. At Kirtlington I can dine out on just having met the man.
At first, I assume that among this rural crowd, I’m regarded as just a mysterious American with a clean slate and odd hair. But one day in the clubhouse, someone blurts out, “So what’s it like to be a pop star?” Oh well, they were on to me from day one and were just being polite. Pretty soon the conversation goes back to horses.
These are the first people that I’ve met since high school who aren’t in show business. Even in college I shrank from the light of “straight” society, and I’ve been underground ever since. These country polo folk are kind of insular themselves with their überstraightness, V-neck sweaters, corduroy pants, and Old World charm. Although they are feared and despised by the British middle class, they seem completely harmless to an American like me. The accent gets me every time. They live with frowsy grace in beautiful country estates and are extremely vague about their jobs. If you already own several acres of Twinkishire, it doesn’t take much to throw a couple of horses into one of the fields. If you have grown up in the country with plenty of time for such pursuits, you can make your own polo ponies and be equipped on Sunday afternoon with enough of a string to earn your gin and tonic. These folks are not so much wealthy as leisurely.
Kuldip Singh Dhillon is a contrast to this. There is no subtle mystery about his wherewithal at all. He is that most dreaded creature of all in the country set: the self-made man. He may have started off selling jeans in the market stalls of Manchester, but now he’s an unstoppable force. Somewhere out there in the world he’s a slash-and-burn real estate developer. In polo world he’s just having fun as he chews up the gentle folk. But his personal magnetism is such that they grudgingly enjoy his company. Hard not to.
Also out there on the polo field are the triple-alpha-type big shots. It doesn’t just take money to play polo. If you work for a living, you need to be able to walk out of the office on weekday afternoons for matches around the country. For this you need to own the office. These are the guys who show up on the field in Ferraris with hot second wives and slick livery. They are used to winning and love the idea of polo, but most are learning to ride as they try to master the game.
And this isn’t the kind of riding that you do on rented trail horses. These horses are revved up and hog-snorting for fast galloping, sudden stops, mad turns, and explosive acceleration. You need your horse to go exactly here, or there, so you can hit the ball or push someone else away from it. And then there is the strategy of the game. You actually haven’t got time to think about the horse. You read the play and race to hit your mark. The horse is on a hair trigger. You communicate with leg and bit but your mind has to be on the game, not on the horse.
In the winters, I go to Argentina and buy horses. My friend Adrian Laplacette has a ranch there, and every day is spent in endless polo. The speed of play is terrifying but smooth. The Argies start young, and by the age of twelve have complete command of horse and ball. Any other player at my level is either eleven, or not Argentine. Unlike the free-for-all melee of the Kirtlington players, the Argies all hit the ball accurately with strategic purpose, and can turn on a dime as they read the play.
The game is divided into eight-minute chukkas. Actually with stoppages for penalties, they take longer, and by the end of one chukka the horses are soaking in sweat and breathing hard. The players leap onto new mounts and roar off to the next period. The spent horses are quickly stripped of gear, hosed down, rubbed, and then walked until they are calm and dry. Better treatment than I get after a show.
The best horses are made in Argentina. They mix the right amount of thoroughbred for speed with a dab of American quarter horse for muscle. They have enough stock that they can be very selective and throw out (to the cattle ranches) anything that doesn’t have a natural talent for the game. Pretty soon there are twelve equine athletes lined up in my string.
To play on a team with Collin will be a step up for my polo involvement. I had been content to play with my horses at practice chukkas at my sleepy little club, but have recently been bringing my string over here to the higher-octane Cirencester club for faster play. Over here, the talk is of tournaments, qualifying matches, and storied trophies.
At Kirtlington, my club, I play formal games on the weekends as arranged by the club, but it’s just Sunday fun. There is no urgency to the competition, no ongoing rivalry with enemy teams. Kirtlington Sunday polo on the main ground is about fun with horses combined with Pimm’s cup, the scent of fresh-cut grass, the wooden clubhouse, and that beautiful tinkling music of clipped British accents. Not many settings are as beautiful as a golden afternoon in rolling Oxfordshire with the sound of the horses hoofs thundering softly, accented by posh military expostulations, “Oh bloody buggering hell!”
Kirtlington does have one team, the official club team, captained by the formidable John Tyler. In the club bar players tell war stories about heroic away games on fabled fields. It all sounds very sexy, but no one ever asked me to play on this team. Decades of brownnosing are required to make the cut, and I have only been out here for a year or two.
So Collin’s proposal is interesting. It will be him and me with two professionals to make up the four-man team. It will be my team, so I get to think up a cool name, choose some colors, and get the shirts made. And I pay for one of the pros.
Entry-level team competition is at the “eight-goal” level. This means simply that the combined handicaps of the four players cannot exceed eight goals. The polo handicap system is the opposite of golf. As a beginner, you start at -2 and then work your way up to a pinnacle of 10. There are maybe six living 10-handicap players in the world. Amateur players can be mighty proud of a 2 handicap. You can start getting paid to play at a 3 handicap and up. I am rated at -1, which means that I gaze down upon about half of the players at Kirtlington but barely qualify for practice chukkas at Cirencester.
Not a great horse for polo.
Copyright © 2009 Alan Olley / alanolley.com
Collin has a handicap of 1. Add that to my -1, and we must hire eight goals’ worth of pro to make up the eight-goal team. How about if we call the team Outlandos?
With a careful eye he has recruited two quietly underhandicapped big hitters for our team, one at 3, the other at 4, which is only seven, but good enough. Philip Elliott is a professional from Australia, and Johnny Kidd is a natural from old money.
Collin hasn’t just chosen me for my wallet, nor for my autograph. He and I are under the radar, undiscovered by the HPA, and are also underhandicapped. We have both been building up strings of fast horses by sneaking down to the Argentina ranches. Strangely, horses make a big difference in polo. No amount of investment in a tennis racquet will make you win at Wimbledon, but, as we are about to find out, fast horses can get you to Windsor.
When other kids were developing hand-eye coordination, I was more into my ears I guess. I’ve never been very good at connecting with a ball. In fact polo is the only ball sport that I have ever worked at. In this sport the ball is addressed from the back of a charging beast, which is a kind of leveler at least. Although my control of the ball is patchy, I’m pretty good at getting to the spot. Some rhythmic part of my brain is in tune with the way horses move, and my fancy boarding school taught me the technique. So on the right horse I can at least get to the ball first, or sometimes more important, deny it to t
he enemy pro. I may not be able to hit the ball so far, but he ain’t gonna be hitting it at all!
Collin is somewhat better. When he connects, the mighty Hammer of the Punjab strikes terror into the hearts of the enemy as the ball flies overhead. The fighting Sikh is fearless and will charge invincibly along the line of play, scattering all before him.
So with me confounding the enemy and Collin intimidating them, Philip and Johnny calmly make the plays.
The big tournament of the season at our level is the Archie David Cup, which is played at Windsor. It’s the most coveted trophy of the semipro polo world. At clubs all across the land teams are mustered and qualifying matches are played. The competition to make the final eight is endless.
First we pick off the riffraff, the local lads on their homemade horses. These guys are generally quite sanguine about getting thrashed by our hired assassins because they probably haven’t got the horsepower to get very far in the tournament anyway. They’re just having a jolly good try. With so many games to play it’s hard on the ponies, so you need many.
Slightly more challenging are the Porsche drivers with their assassins. They are not sanguine at all. These qualifiers are not the beautiful Sunday games. They’re played during the week on distant back fields. There are no ladies in beautiful dresses out here; just flinty-eyed grooms and trucks full of horses. Since every game is a knockout, we can’t lose a single one.
Every match scrapes us past another team. Our cohesion improves. My job at No. 1 is to play forward. I must harass the enemy defenses and clear openings for our big guys. Collin at No. 2 and Philip at No. 3 combine to score goals, while Johnny at No. 4 plays our back door and stops any enemy attack. He’s about six foot four and has been playing polo at the family ranch on Barbados since childhood. Philip is an industrious player and led by Collin’s raw aggression, keeps us moving inexorably closer to qualifying for the big tournament.
Finally we get to the last qualifier, which is against the official Kirtlington Club team with the formidable John Tyler at the helm. This game is played on Sunday on the main ground, attended by all my chums at my home club. Most of them were on the crap teams that Outlandos has been thrashing so they are jeering as they cheer us on. And we win! Well, Pimm’s cup has never tasted so sweet. It feels like stealing the head prefect’s tuck. We’re going to Windsor! Sixty-odd teams have been whittled down to eight.
We manage to win the quarterfinal without incident. I think the other team must have exhausted their horses in the qualifiers because we run circles around them. Not so the next team that we have to play in the semifinal. For this game we are up against the best horses in the country. The enemy trucks and grooms are like an army. Actually, it’s the cavalry. The patron on the opposition sort of owns the ground we are playing on, or at least will one day be king of it. For the moment he’s just the Prince of Wales.
Lucky for us, he’s a little out of sorts, having just pranged his Aston Martin into my Range Rover at the side of the field. He’s playing back for his team, which means that he’s my opposite number. I’m supposed to shut him down so that Collin and Philip can score. Well, he’s got me completely outhorsed, but I’m able to screw him up just enough for us to win the game. Profane language has a special panache when issued from royal lips.
Next day, my engineer Jeff Seitz is a mystery celebrity. He was at the wheel of my car when Sir clipped it. I was elsewhere at the time. It just so happens that the papers have recently been full of the latest royal tiff. At Ascot recently, Prince Charles was overheard speaking a tad more gruffly than intended to Princess Diana to order her off sitting on his blessed Aston. The photos of the tragic princess scorned have lit up the nation. So now here is the future king bending the same precious fender against a car owned by an unidentified American polo player. The headlines are howling. Jeff has a little extra swagger to him after his brush with royalty. He’s a big Diana fan.
By the time we get to the big final match of the Archie David Cup, the club knows whose Range Rover that was, so I’m greeted by my old friend the Major Ronald Ferguson. And sure enough in his view, I have survived to dent royalty. Exactly the sort of problem you get when you let pop stars in. Since I wasn’t anywhere near the incident, he can’t do much more than harrumph me with those saberlike brows. And getting through to the final of this tournament that he’s hosting does confer a certain shred of mojo. My quantity is more known.
We have barely made it. Of my twelve horses, only four are fully fit. The others are either exhausted or dented.
Every night I’ve been on the phone with Margaret Churchill. Part of her job is to protect the animals against my overuse, but she is as engaged in winning the tournament as I am. Inevitably horses get whacked by ball, mallet, spur, and other horses. In fact nothing nice happens to them on the field, which you would never suspect given their enthusiasm for the game. They are always eager to play. One technique that the polo player has to learn early on is the trick of running backward on one leg while mounting an eager horse. They run out to the game and exert themselves to the max, charging into other horses if need be. They can hear the crack of the ball, and they leap to follow the line. But they do get dented. Big and bony as they are, they’re quite fragile. The bruises take time to arise, however, so my conversations with Margaret are like a tally of bumps, scratches, stiffnesses, and sorenesses. We consider which ponies will be ready for the next game and try to plot a course that gives me the hottest ones when I need them. Right now they are all overplayed. We had to win the semifinal yesterday, so I put my best stock on the field to defeat the royal team. Today we get to play on what’s left.
It’s a big day, but the weather is terrible. The ground is a soggy, slippery mess. As we charge desperately up and down the field, mud is flying from hooves and the ball is bouncing off huge divots. The other team has been on the same endless journey to get here and are looking just as rangy as us. Their assassins are monsters, and even the patrons are gnarly. Our Collin is in a homicidal rage. Under the brim of his helmet his mustache is on fire.
Neither team is able to hold the advantage. We score, then they do, then us, and so on for four chukkas. The bell goes, and it’s a tie. Now we go into sudden death: first team to score wins. Well, for this fifth chukka I have to pull out a horse that has already played today. This is where horsepower is critical. Zola can do it. She’s my lightest and fastest but most used horse. She’s exhausted, but so is everyone else. We can see that the other team is not exactly rushing back out onto the field, so hopefully they are having problems, too. This chukka is just a panic. Everyone has lost their minds and no one can score. Collin is apoplectic. The bell rings again. Still no winner!
We are all so covered in mud that it’s hard to distinguish the teams as we limp off the field to find horses. The next chukka is like the fourth day at Woodstock, in a driving rain. We are beginning to wear the other bastards down and are driving the game toward their goal, but they get a lucky break, and in an instant are in our goalmouth. Johnny is there! He cuts the ball away, but the whistle blows. No one is sure what happened, but a foul is called against us. A thirty-yard free shot at our undefended goal is awarded. Aahhh, shit!
The meanest and flintiest of the enemy team lines up the ball for his shot. I’m sitting on my drooping horse behind the back line, soaking in the dull rain. Philip is the only member of our team who isn’t wallowing in certain defeat. The umpire has his back to the wet wind and calls “Play.” The enemy is still tapping the ball into position for his coup de grâce. Suddenly Philip is over the back line spurring his screw to a gallop! The bad guy just has time to look up in surprise before our good guy cracks the ball away and is off up the field with Outlandos in ragged pursuit. You see, after the umpire says “play” you get one free shot—which ought to be right into the open goalmouth. So the enemy stud’s next tap was that shot, and now it’s our turn. He should have been listening.
Philip’s moment of lightning genius is overcome by ex
haustion of course, and our progress up the ground is not beautiful, but we get there. Because of our shambolic progress the attack is blunted by a last dogged defense by the rotters. It’s an Agincourt of flying mud, squealing horses, and hoarse curses. We’re shouting and straining and swinging but have lost the ball. Finally someone connects with a healthy whack. The ball flies…hits a horse…bounces…Collin swings…misses…and then a horse kicks the damned ball over the back line into the goal, and we are victorious!
The good news is that we have won the Archie David Cup and pretty much a lifetime of bragging rights. The slightly mixed news is that Collin and I have been spotted. When you win big tournaments, your handicap goes up. So Collin goes up to 2 and I go to zero, which sounds pretty lame but is better than -1. This slows down our progress for the season now that we have to trade one of our big players in for someone lesser. We carry on winning though, and before the end of the summer I get put up again, to 1. Way better than being a zero, even if we don’t end up winning any more games.
One day, in the semifinal of the County Cup at Cirencester, having a great game on a hot day, I ask my horse to turn right when he’s just about to turn left. He crosses his front legs, trips, and is suddenly somersaulting. I am obliged to dismount—head-first out the front door. The important thing to consider during this nanosecond is the full bony half-ton of horse that is sharing your trajectory through space. You don’t wish to cushion at all the impending impact of beast and turf. You don’t want to be where he hits the ground. When you come down with speed you hit the ground at an angle and can deflect damage by rolling. Before hitting the deck you are already scrambling to keep moving and dodge the horse.
Strange things happen: a life with the Police, polo, and pygmies Page 7
