7 minute read
Country House Polo
Anyone fed up with the win-at-all-costs attitude should seek out an invitation to Country House Polo. It’s a growing movement and a reminder of gentler times. Yolanda Carslaw is charmed
Two sets of players line up in the middle of a Gloucestershire polo ground and an umpire throws in the ball. ere follows a few misjudged swipes, hooked sticks and clumsy jostling for position before someone fi nally gets hold of a decent pass. e commentator is getting excited, while 50-odd spectators keep one eye on the action, another on drinks, children, fellow bystanders. It’s a pretty English picture – a low-goal tournament at the height of summer, perhaps. But wait a minute. Aren’t they all behaving rather politely? Where is the raised arm? e raised voice? And why is just one player per team a nimble, skilful expert?
Why do I keep seeing them selfl essly passing the ball up to their less profi cient team-mates? And, hang on, don’t most of the chaps on the fi eld usually run their own teams, with three pros each? In that case, what are they doing here, playing their socks off , virtually all by themselves? e answer is that this match, at Colin Dhillon’s Trewsbury Farm, near the source of the River ames outside Cirencester, is by no means regular low-goal: it’s Country House Polo, an “alternative” to club polo. ree amateurs and one three or four-goal professional make up each team, and everyone is invited to a sociable tea or lunch afterwards. But most importantly, Country House Polo is played without pressure or tension. e movement’s founder, Nigel a’Brassard, an investment banker and 0-goal player, originally put his idea to a group of private ground-owners three years ago.
‘Country House Polo was started to recreate what I think polo used to be like,’ he says. ‘When I fi rst took up the sport in the early 1980s, it was competitive, but it was done in a gentlemanly spirit.
‘Now, most patrons – of all nationalities and ages, across all levels – are only interested in winning. And they want to win at almost any cost, and that takes a lot of the enjoyment out of it. Meanwhile the pros have another match, so they jump in the car and drive off . Before, we’d all go to the bar and talk about the game. e whole thing has become much less gentlemanly.’
Colin Dhillon’s home is one of Country House Polo’s dozen or so venues across the south of England. Others include Black Bears patron Urs Schwarzenbach’s grounds near Henley, which hosted the fi rst Country House Polo fi xture two years ago; the Lloyd Webbers’ Watership Down estate, HPA chairman Christopher Hanbury’s Longdole and the Vesteys’ Foxcote, both in Gloucestershire. e day I visit, the Dhillons’ two immaculate fi elds are hosting not only six chukkas of polo, but a village fête – which means there is more of an audience than usual. e polo runs
Above: Colin and Jacqueline Dhillon hosts of the Trewsbury Farm (pictured right) Country House Polo day.
Left: Alex Olmos and Nigel a’ Brassard battle for possession of the ball.
Back to t
k to the future
alongside pony rides, football training with former England captain Tony Adams, who lives nearby, tours of a fi re engine and polo’s compulsory partner: a lamb asado crackling away under the supervision of half a dozen South Americans. e setting is idyllic: alongside the ground is a leafy avenue; on the other side, thick hedges; at the end, a pretty copse around which ponies are exercising on a sandy canter track. Cottonwool clouds race overhead. e three teams’ nine amateurs include a former fi ghter pilot, a Cresta Run recordholder, a clutch of low- and medium-goal patrons, Country House Polo secretary Lavinia Black and Nigel a’Brassard. ey have forked out about one-third of what they would pay for a low-goal club match. is week, the current and former high-goal regulars – Urs Schwarzenbach, David Jamison, Alex Ebeid (patron of the Falcons more than 20 years ago) – happen to be absent.
‘A lot of amateurs who play Country House Polo have won the Gold Cup. In fact, at one game, I was the only one who hadn’t,’ says a’Brassard, who keeps a beautifully handwritten record of every game in a hardback book. e pros at Trewsbury are Englishman Julian Appleby, Argentine veteran Alex Olmos and young Indian hotshot, Raghav Raj Singh. ey are under instructions to pass the ball rather than dribble it; to play back shots rather than turning the ball; to keep the game moving and open it up. ey do, and as a result, they make the amateurs shine.
‘I have seen people who have been playing for years play their best games ever at these matches,’ says a’Brassard. Raghav Raj Singh adds: ‘You make the others play as much as you can.’
Other regular pros include Gus Prentice, Rob Cudmore and Tim Keyte. Prentice says: ‘You go hard and fast but don’t dominate the game. It’s classical English style. And you never query an umpire’s decision.’
At Trewsbury, the match itself is low-key. It is certainly good-natured, and everyone
Simon England taking the ball upfi eld with Jan Stanek in attendance
gets plenty of cracks at the ball. About half the crowd at the fete watches inquisitively at the sidelines, obediently treading in at half-time.
What is remarkable, though, is that nobody – even the players – is quite sure which of the three teams has won, despite a large, obvious scoreboard. And when we gather round for the prize-giving, the winning side is uncertain who its captain is.
A’Brassard has an antique, intricately decorated cup to hand over – he collects polo memorabilia – but more entertaining are the special awards. is week, fi lm DVDs go to the best defender (In the Line of Fire), the highest scorer (A Fistful of Dollars), and best riding skills (Blazing Saddles). Lavinia Black, as the only female on the fi eld, is named best woman player and Australian Ian Archibald, mid-way through a European tour, best (and only) visitor.
In the Dhillons’ handsome farmhouse afterwards, players descend on a dining table laden with egg and cress sandwiches, scones, cake and fl apjacks.
Discussing the game, the amateurs agree that the most important thing they get from Country House Polo is no-pressure practice. Cosmetic surgeon Jan Stanek, who plays up to 12-goal himself and backed an all-pro team of young Britons in this year’s Cowdray Park Gold Cup, says:
‘Playing for real, you’re aff ected by the psychology of competition. ings can get nasty, with swearing and so on. at never happens here.
Also, the pitches are pristine, which is not always the case with club polo, so we stand a far better chance of hitting the ball.’
David Wildridge, a former fi ghter pilot who shadowed Russian bombers during the Cold War, says: ‘Here, you are not trying to prove anything. ere’s a place for all types of polo, but at my stage of life, this is where you have the most fun. And there’s always a fi fth chukka – meaning the social event afterwards. at’s when any competitiveness begins.’
Not surprisingly, Country House Polo is gaining a loyal following, with 61 players last season – compared to 20-odd the fi rst year – and a waiting list most weekends. Organisers say it is running at full capacity, although I gather those who could off er their own private ground might still wangle an invitation. However, participants do see potential for duplicate activity in other parts of the country – wherever there is a cluster of private fi elds.
‘Other people ought to do it in other areas,’ says Colin Dhillon. ‘What Nigel a’Brassard has done is exceptional; now it could be spread around.’ Inglesham is already catching on that there’s a market for an alternative to regular club polo, and has launched “pro-am”, a series with two pros and two amateurs per team; meanwhile Beaufort stages County Polo, aimed at novice players with limited funds or horsepower. Perhaps these ventures herald the wider resurrection of an informal, low-pressure style of polo. ■
Above right: The captain of the winning team Eddie Miller with the 1905 Madras Polo Club Trophy
Above left: The Little Gladiators with their giant ear buds
Left: A Lancia that brings back fond memories
