Polo!
On Saturday, Ashlyn and I were invited to watch the
semifinals of the BMW NZ Polo Open, which was held at the Auckland Polo
Grounds, by an old friend-of-a-friend named Mat Norris.
Mat is what some New Zealanders would refer to as a “good
keen bloke”. Mat became friends with
two of my dearest college friends, Cammy and Marion, when they were all working
in Kodiak, Alaska not long after we graduated from college, about 20 years ago. Mat has stayed in touch with Cammy and Marion
ever since and I actually met him back then when he visited Cammy and Marion on
the East coast in the early 1990s. Marion
recently dug up a photo of us in Washington DC from that trip (none of us have
aged a bit, right!).
When Ashlyn and I started to plan our sabbatical, Cammy put
me back in touch with Mat so that we could reconnect once we got to New
Zealand. Mat was nice enough to give us
a ride from the airport to our rental house when we arrived in Auckland, and as
if that wasn’t enough, Mat loaned us his car the first three weeks that we were
here because he was headed over to Australia for a three-week trip. Talk about going above and beyond the call of
duty!
So on Saturday, we arrived at the Auckland Polo Grounds to
watch our first polo match ever. Polo is
played with four people on a team and the match is divided into six periods
(called “chukkers”), each lasting 7 minutes.
Polo fields are the largest fields of any organized sport, and
interestingly, most players at that level have a different horse for each chukker
(6 horses just for one match!). One of
the important things to know if you ever watch a polo match is that every time
a team scores, they switch ends, so it can be a little disorienting for a
spectator at first. There’s not that
much in the way of safety gear – a helmet, some elbow and kneepads, and that’s
about it. Here’s Luke modeling some of
the gear.
I learned three important things about polo on
Saturday. 1) Polo is FAST. It was amazing to see how quickly the game
moves up and down the pitch, and how easily the riders turned the horses back
and forth as the play moved around the field.
2) Polo is LOUD. The stomping
hooves, the frantic breathing of the horses, and the screaming riders all make
for a very exciting atmosphere even without the commentators. 3) Polo is DANGEROUS. The riders hit the ball incredibly hard
(upwards of 110 miles per hour!) and can effortlessly lift the ball in the air
so it’s amazing that more people don’t get whacked in the head or the face by
one of the balls.
In the match that we watched, “Rodd & Gunn” defeated “Southfield”
11-7 to advance to Sunday’s final. We
didn’t go to the finals on Sunday, but it was apparently a much fancier affair
with cocktail parties, corporate tents, a fashion show, etc. It was really great to watch the match on
Saturday, and while I don’t think I’m going to start following polo on a
regular basis, it was certainly another fun new activity that I’m thankful we
were able to try while we’re in New Zealand. I’m also very thankful to re-connect
with Mat after all these years and to be able to spend some time with him while
we are in Auckland. Thanks Mat and “good
on ya, mate”!