TALK
EYE ON ASIA Judging by the latest season, the future of Pakistan’s polo is in good hands, says James Harper
The author teaching army officers and soldiers at the Mona Depo horse stud, a four-hour drive north-west of Lahore
Once you get over the goodbyes and the ‘keep safe over there!’, it’s onto the plane with the thought, here we go again! I’m travelling to Lahore, Pakistan where I’ll spend the next six weeks playing their ‘high-goal’ season 12- and 14-goal tournaments. It’s my third time here, but my first experience of playing for the Pakistan Army. On the previous two trips, I played for some Karachi-based patrons and couldn’t have asked for a better group of guys to play for, so I’m a little anxious, to say the least, to meet my new team at the Lahore Polo Club. Luckily for me, it’s another fantastic group of players. Along with the club’s supporters, they would do anything for you and are always checking if we, the foreign pros, are okay. I couldn’t feel more welcome. Once I’ve picked through the hundreds of horses you get given to try every day, it’s a matter
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of keeping those horses just for you and finding some tack that fits. And then I’m ready to go. Ideally, you arrive four or five days before you play your first game, otherwise it’s a big shock to just jump on and go, as views on what constitutes a good horse can vary. Again, luckily for me, the army has their own field so I can play chukkas with the local army guys to get used to my horses. Play resembles a cross between the Pakistan mountain polo and farm chukkas in Argentina: flat out with no rules. Interesting! The ‘high-goal’ season begins with two, one-week 12-goal tournaments with six teams and then two, one-week 14-goal tournaments with seven teams, followed by the 14-goal Open, which is essentially the only tournament everyone wants to win. This lasts for two weeks and everyone plays everyone.
hurlinghampolo.com
So it’s game on. With the volatile political situation in Pakistan, if we wanted, we could have a hundred guys with AK-47s walking around with us and 24-hour security, but I have always felt safe. I visit Pakistan with the thought that there is nothing I can do if it did go pear-shaped. There is no point worrying: what will happen will happen. The other foreign pros with me on this trip were Gaston Moore, Raul Laplacette, Vieri Antinori,
About 30 hardcore fans and players come to every game and stay on until the night
