A NEW FIELD HONORING NEIL R. AYER SR.

BY BRION O’CONNOR

At a club with as rich a tradition as Myopia Polo, legacy is earned. And it would be a tall task to find a member more deserving to have his name commemorated than Neil R. Ayer Sr., who served as polo captain from 1960 to 1967.

This spring, Myopia Polo unveiled its newest pitch, the Neil R. Ayer Polo Field, on the club’s Schooling Fields. It honors a man who, despite his own wealth, was committed to ensuring polo was a sport that wasn’t reserved solely for the rich and famous.

“I had been brought up to feel that if you were lucky enough to be able to do things and go places, you really ought to do your best to share your good fortune with other people who were interested in doing the same things you were, but who, because of circumstances of birth, did not have the means to do so,” wrote Ayer in his memoir, “Wind Over Willowdale.” “It mattered not to me whether a person was a member of the club or not, or where they came from. If they wanted to play, I tried to encourage them to do so.

“I figured you didn’t have to live in a big house on top of a big hill to be a good sportsman; you just had to be a good sportsman,” he wrote. “Where you lived was quite immaterial to me.”

Ayer also served as Myopia’s Master of Foxhounds from 1968 to 1983 and was an internationally acclaimed equitation course designer, designing and building the cross-country course for the 1984 Summer Olympics. But when it came to polo, he applied his own finely tuned sense of fair play.

“I asked only that whoever played abided by the traditions of sportsmanship that pervade the game, and that he did his share of the work,” he wrote in his memoir. “During the years of my captaincy, we players mowed and watered the field. We put up the sideboards and took them down. We did everything that had to be done. So I felt that whoever wanted to play ought to participate in this common work.”

That sense of inclusion guided Ayer’s approach to the game in almost every aspect. He wanted to open the club’s polo matches to more spectators — “In the years before the war, virtually nobody came to see polo except the families of the people playing,” he wrote. “Polo was considered a private game played at a private club, and except when there was a championship or some special occasion, outsiders weren’t invited to participate or watch.” — and was instrumental in building the ring that would be later named the Joseph Poor Memorial Arena.

“This, too, opened up the game,” he wrote. “Traditionally we played every Wednesday afternoon, but many of the newer players couldn’t be there Wednesdays, because they were busy at their jobs. So we came up with the idea of building a polo arena for evening games.”

Ayer is also remembered for creating a unique system that allowed more than four players per team to participate in a match, regardless of how many ponies they brought. “Usually, the players on a polo team are numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4, but because I was mixing everyone around so much, I gave everybody his own number,” Ayer wrote.

“It didn’t make any difference what position I played; I was number 13,” he wrote. “This was nice for the players, but it also served to open the game to outside spectators. The traditional numbering system is all very fine if you’re a club member and know everyone. But for an outsider, it is important to be able to identify the players. That way people can develop favorites and cheer them on.”

Ayer’s son, Neil Ayer Jr., fondly remembers his father, who passed away in 1990, as a man who was committed to Myopia’s time-honored traditions and its ideals of sportsmanship.

“As his son, I’m of course immensely proud of him,” says Ayer Jr. “I might be biased, but what I remember was that he, more than anyone at that time, was focused on polo, building and painting,

organizing, solving problems, and getting people involved. I’m honored and thrilled that his efforts have led to the new field bearing his name. He would be delighted to see the families and individuals, both from his time and now, that are still involved and remembered.”

The younger Ayer, while acknowledging the work of other club members, notably Tim Clark Sr., Don Little Sr. and Crocker Snow Sr., described his father as a “spark plug.” Ayer Sr., in his memoir, saw himself the same way.

“When I returned home in the mid-50s and began playing polo again, I took something of a lead in revitalizing the game,” Ayer wrote.

For that, generations of Myopia polo players are indebted to Neil R. Ayer Sr.