4 minute read
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 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. 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,
Manuel Crespo, Gerardo Massini, Ignacio del Tour, Santiago Mendivil, and Simon McLaren-Tosh as the main pro umpire. Everyone seemed to get on thankfully, which is normally the case over here.
This year, more than most, there seemed to be a big gap between a few of the teams’ horsepower in comparison to the rest. A few of the main sponsors, the Sufis and Naveed Sheikh, have been going to Argentina buying three to six horses every year for almost five years now, and it’s starting to show. I think it’s going to kick the other patrons and players into gear and I think you’ll begin to see a lot of the local guys coming to England and going to Argentina to buy horses over the next few years. As always, it comes down to horsepower so, finally, they have all realised something needs to be done to compete on a level basis, which is great for Pakistani polo. The team of Naveed Sheikh, Raul Laplacette and Santiago Mendivil, with A N Other – depending on the handicap of the tournament – were by far the most successful of the season, winning one of the two 12-goals and all three of the 14-goals.
Things are looking good for the future of polo in Pakistan. The army is working on three new fields in Lahore, there are a few others spread across the country, and the Lahore polo club fields are always improving. A youth development polo school has also been set up by some of the fathers who are working hard to improve the future of the sport in Pakistan. And there is just the right number of people desperate to learn to play polo, which isn’t as straightforward as just joining and buying a horse. During the high-goal season you would have about 30 hardcore fans and players at every game and staying on until the night discussing the day’s play. For at least three months of the year they all live for polo and it’s really a great thing to see. For anyone looking to travel playing polo, or to any of the pros that get asked to go to Pakistan, it is a great country to visit. You couldn’t meet a nicer group of people, with some of the most wonderful characters looking after you. Polo is on the up in Pakistan and it is a great country to see, with many eye-opening experiences to be had. Thanks to General Pataudi, the Pakistan Army and all the local guys that made my trip, yet again, a truly memorable experience.
