Ignacio Fernandez Llorente POLO PROFESSIONALS For more than 30 years, professionalism in polo is in sight, that is, a player charges money to play. Before players did not charge for playing but sold horses to their teammates, as compensation.
When a team is formed where a professional participates, the professional is expected, with his talent compensates the performance of the other players.
From so many years of professionalism, you can see a considerable improvement in the skill of the players and improvement in the level of horses.
Getting to this level and to dedicate yourself as a polo professional, although it does not seem to require skills, and requires training.
In most sports, being professional, that is, the person who lives from competing in his sport, is only possible for a small number of athletes. If you are not among the first in the world rankings, you cannot live off the sport. We can see fabulous athletes who cannot live off the sport.
To train you need horses, and time, so training is not free, it is an investment, which begins to recover through participating in tournaments. From the point of view of the amateur, where polo is fun, it is hard for him to understand professionalism, but the professional lives off the sport, and cannot give away his work.
In polo, being a sport of few people and the existence of a handicap system, there are professionals of all levels who live from playing polo. In many cases this is helped by the buying and selling of horses, horse training and polo classes. In polo through handicap, a world ranking can be established. Despite the ranking we find professionals of all handicaps. Polo is very generous compared to other sports, low level players live from polo. My estimates on Polo are that a person who does not live from polo, and who has another job can play up to 2 handicap. To play 3 handicap you have to almost dedicate yourself and have started before 18 years of age to play and still be young. So it can be said that from 3 handicap players are professionals.
The professional charges for what he brings to his team. The professional will also risk capital when using their horses, and will have to demand much more than their amateur peers, it can be said that the professional provides a service to their peers to play better, to win the game, to have fun. The amateurs who do not accept professionals can compete against them, but for this they will have to dedicate a lot of training. In short, the professional is an athlete who trains and competes for much longer (have more kilometres on a horse). In Argentina where there are more Professionals, the practices and matches are 6 chukkas, when in most other countries there are 4 chukkas. In other words, there is 50% more training on the same day. This is 3
