PrOFILE
frederick howard mannix He has a handicap of 6 with the USPA and 9 in the rest of the world, and his team, Alegría, fnished fnalist in the 2013 Argentine Open. Fred Mannix Jr credits an early start to his career and excellent mentors for his considerable success illUStrAtiOn PHil diSley
I’m a second-generation polo player. I grew up on a farm in Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, and had access to horses from an early age. My father had a rating of 2 goals. He played for the Fish Creek Polo Team and made the fnals of the US Open twice. Fish Creek played in Indio, California, during the winter months and this allowed me to be part of those great seasons early in my career. As a child, I took part in the Pee-Wee kids weekend programme run by Joe Barry, Corky Linfoot, Steve Crowder and Artie Cameron. From these organised practices, I learnt the basics of polo. It was here, too, that I met some of my best friends. In 2000, Eldorado Polo Club in Indio hosted the qualifers for the FIP tournament to be played in Australia and I was selected for the Canadian national team. I was just 16, and this was my frst real big competition and the one that would launch my career in international polo. We ended up playing against the USA for the last qualifying spot and won. It was an amazing game, full of tension and adrenaline, and everyone was so proud of us. I was really thrilled to be part of the excitement and to be representing Canada on the world stage. During the summer of 2005, we took a Canadian team to play two test matches in
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Building your string is a never-ending pursuit and you will never be satisfed
South Africa. Our team was 24 goals, so quite a good level for an international match. We played our frst match in Durban – an excellent game with some great horses lent by local players. Our second, in Johannesburg, was equally good fun, and the whole trip was a great way to bond with fellow countrymen. That year, I also played my frst season of high-goal polo in Argentina, with the famous Araya brothers. Benjamin invited me to take the place of his brother Pepe, with whom he had won the Camerra the year before. After not qualifying for Hurlingham and the Open, I stayed for the rest of the season. I enjoyed spectating at the Open, but this made me even more determined to play in it and, with hard work and a bit of luck, in 2007, I qualifed for the frst time. Though we lost all our games, being included in the best tournament in the
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world was a fantastic experience and propelled me into the upper echelons of our sport. I’ve since played in six Argentine Opens with Alegría, reaching the fnal for the frst time this year. With Polito, Hillario and Lucas, we had an incredible team. We all found our places within it and worked well together from the frst throw-in, playing a great style of polo: very open and moving the ball as fast as we could. It gained us a lot of fans along the way! Over the course of my career, I’ve been lucky to have had several excellent mentors. Julio Zavaleta was my father’s pro for 17 years and they have a great friendship to this day. Polo is a unique world to grow up in and, with Julio’s guidance, I was able to navigate the pressures that are put upon a talented young player. He is a great horseman and taught me the single most important thing to understand if you’re trying to become the best player you can: get yourself mounted. By that, I mean really mounted – to the point where, if you fnd a pony that will improve your string, you buy it. Work a deal in payments or rent it or somehow engineer it so you can play this horse. Building your string is a never-ending pursuit and you will never be satisfed with where you are, but good horses provide you
