hurlingham [ talk ]
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getting them up and running When a move to the country failed to cure his children’s slovenliness, Martin Armstrong’s family took up polo – and found their relationships blossomed found that the cows, which we were initially excited about, were a bit boring. They didn’t seem to do much, and with the endless forms to fill in every time a calf was born, it felt more like trying to adopt a baby! It was a lot of work keeping these animals and we weren’t getting much in return. As I surveyed our farm on a Saturday lunchtime in January, with the boys in bed, I spoke to Rose, or ‘Headquarters’ as I like to call her, and we decided to start a polo team. We all liked horses, hunting only took place in the winter, it’s a four-man sport, and we have four boys, eureka! The paperwork around horses was pretty simple, or so we thought, before we realised that hiring the grooms and going through all the paperwork to get polo permits took just as must time as calving. Oh God, why hadn’t I taken up crack cocaine? It was far cheaper and better for my blood pressure! We stuck to our guns, though, called up some friends, bought four ponies from Argentina and had them shipped over. Our fine steeds duly arrived in April and
immediately grew their winter coats thinking they were still in Argentina. We knocked around on a makeshift pitch all summer and even played a tournament at Knepp Castle. We were still renting horses and relying on others to help us when a kindly five-goal professional came to live with us and helped us buy some more. It wouldn’t be a stab in the dark to say he retired to Patagonia on the proceeds of those transactions. On the bright side, my wife turned out to be an excellent truck driver. ‘A saving!’ I thought. But every time
The paperwork for polo permits took as much time as calving. oh god, why hadn’t i taken up crack cocaine? it was far cheaper and better for my blood pressure! www.hurlinghampolo.com
WWW.iMAgesofpolo.coM/Neil
One sunny day two years ago I was sitting on our farm in Lewes staring at the cows and giving thanks that we lived in such a lovely corner – the South Downs – of such a beautiful country, when a niggling thought crept int0 the back of my mind and disturbed my blissful contentment. It was a brooding uneasiness that perhaps the rural idyll my wife Rose and I had tried so hard to create for our children was actually not all it was cracked up to be. Having moved down from London a few years before, we’d found that the sedentary habits of our children, and indeed myself (although certainly not my wife!) were still in evidence and slowly getting worse. And yet we’d moved to the countryside so our children could have wide open spaces to frolic and while away the sunny afternoons enjoying the perfect childhood. To my dismay, our four boys, now approaching their teenage years, were actually spending more time in bed, punctuated with surfing the internet, gaming, watching football on television and ‘grazing’ huge amounts of biscuits and cheese from the fridge. We also
