Polo Tip #30: Playing Smart – Overmounted or Improperly Mounted

If you are uncomfortable with a horse, Get Off.

Most of you know that the game of polo is all about the horse. If you don’t, you will. The most important factor is being comfortable on your horse, at whatever level of play. If you and a horse are not a match, that is as simple as it gets. It does not matter how fast the horse is, how pretty they are, and whether or not anybody else likes it. The important part is that you feel secure and safe. Your requirements for certain characteristics of a horse’s playing performance are going to continually change due to your changing riding abilities and levels of play. If you are comfortable on a horse that can jump inside out, do 360’s faster than a spinning top, reach full speed an a couple of strides, great. If you have to be to work on Monday morning and have others to provide for, you might want a more solid, slightly less responsive model. One that doesn’t flip over on you just because you held onto them a little too tight, or at least that is what your trainer is telling you as you are looking at them with a glaze over your eyes, with a thousand pounds of horse now on top of you. Not only are you unclear as to who that trainer is, you are wondering why this stranger in an emt outfit is asking you what day it is and what your name is. I can not tell you how often I have avoided serious incidents in my forty years of playing, with a very simple dismount.