Polo Player Equipment

Below is a list of equipment needed to play polo and some links pointing to trustworthy sites that sell each article. If I’ve left anything off, please comment and let me know! The below list is player equipment only, I’ll deal with horses and tack in a future post.

Polo Helmet

Polo helmets consist of a hard plastic frame supporting foam or another impact-absorbing material. They’re generally covered in cotton cloth or leather and come in a variety of colors. The helmet brim is usually made of stiff cardboard and will break away when necessary.

Your helmet is the most important piece of polo equipment you’ll buy. Everyone falls off of their horse eventually – some of us more frequently than others. On top of that, polo is a fast and rough sport. It makes sense to protect the most vulnerable part of your body. The opportunity for severe injury is just too great to ever justify playing, or riding, without a helmet. … Continue Reading

Polo.tv – free videos of high-goal polo

I imagine that most of the PoloGringo readers are already familiar with the website Polo.tv but in case you’re not, this is a fantastic free resource. Basically, Polo.tv is a collection of video clips from the various high-goal polo tournaments around the world. They have video of the Argentine Open, the US Open, the Coronation Cup, the Outback 40-goal, and many others. There is even some snow polo and test matches thrown in there.

All-in-all this is a great resource. It’s fun to watch and sometimes, if you’re like me, you can think about your own technique too much and get stuck in a rut. It’s nice to watch 10-goalers for inspiration and ideas — especially when you have the ability to rewind and watch a specific play a few times. Enjoy!

Building a Wooden Practice Horse

In my opinion, the best way to fine-tune your swing is on a wooden horse in a hitting cage or pit. This allows you to reproduce the exact same situation over and over again without worrying about your approach to the ball, the lay of the ball, horse fatigue, or anything else. You are allowed to focus exclusively on your swing. Practicing like this will help to get the correct swing mechanics locked into “muscle memory” so when you’re on the field you can focus more on tactics and less on swing mechanics.

Here are some plans to build your own hitting cage and wooden horse, by G.R. Pocock. 

Here is a link on how to make a practice horse out of a metal drum … Continue Reading

Polo Tips by Tom Goodspeed, Now in Downloadable PDF!

If you’re like me, rather than practice and go home, sometimes you go out to the barn and make a day of it. Take a horse out, come back and chat for a while, clean some tack, take out another horse, etc.

Occasionally I’ll find that I’m the only person around for an hour or so. This downtime is a great opportunity to review some polo basics. Reading a tip or two before riding is a sure-fire way to get yourself mentally prepared for real practice — you’ll naturally pay more attention to your technique and hopefully won’t be tempted quite so often to just sail up and down the field hitting wild forehand after wild forehand. (I’m not saying that that’s not fun, of course, but I’m not sure how much it will help your game in the end!)

With this in mind, I’ve compiled all of Tom Goodspeed’s excellent Polo Tips articles into one downloadable and print-ready PDF file. Enjoy!

Click the link to download (approx. 2MB): Polo Tips by Tom Goodspeed PDF

The best instructional polo book I’ve found

In a previous post, I mentioned that I’ve spent a great deal of money on polo books since I began playing. Unfortunately, few of these books have proven helpful. There is one glowing exception, however. Hugh Dawnay’s book, Playmaker Polo, is the single best book for the novice or intermediate player I have yet found. Dawnay is an internationally recognized polo coach and has been intimately involved with the sport for many years. In Playmaker Polo he explores basics such as striking, beginner horsemanship, muscle memory, preperation on and off the field, and playmaking as well as more advanced concepts such as team strategy and formations, set-piece positions, learning to emphasize the strengths of your team (and the weaknesses of your opponents) on-the-fly, and many more.

Dawnay has organized the book in such a way that the reader is best served by going through from start to finish, rather than skipping from chapter to chapter depending on personal interests. There are many concepts in this book that would benefit almost every player, not just the novice. Even those sections that seem remedial commonly offer up gems of wisdom that you won’t find anywhere else. 

I’ve read the book cover-to-cover twice now and I imagine I’ll read it many more times through the years. Dawnay highlights key concepts with excellent diagrams and with “action” photographs of well-known players executing the concepts in real play (Cambiaso, Gracida, Peres, are a few names you may recognize). Indeed, Dawnay’s diagram of the Ball Clock and Pony Clock is one I will reference many times in future posts here. Dawnay also inserts amusing anecdotes from his own experiences to highlight the easily forgotton nature of some the more basic concepts, and the benefits of taking these lessons to heart.

And finally, Playmaker Polo includes a large number of excercies the reader can practice individually on the stick-and-ball field, with a partner, or with an entire team to improve striking, horsemanship, and tactics. I simply cannot recommend this book enough.