Springfield Polo Club

Manitoba has a long polo history stretching back to 1894 when the first match was played in Winnipeg. Beginning in 1907, the military played polo at three locations: Polo Park (now Winnipeg’s premier shopping centre), Whittier Park (now the home of the Festival du Voyageur) and at the prestigious St. Charles Country Club. Polo faded from the scene for some time following the First World War and the Great Depression.

Years later, polo was reintroduced to Manitoba by Ross Fargey, who learned to play in Ghana, West Africa, while spending several years teaching at the Accra University. Upon his return to Springfield, Ross stirred up excitement for the sport by placing an ad in the local Clipper. This resulted in 12 founding members from the Springfield area who drafted an official charter in the summer of 1973. Of those 12, Ross brought the polo and experience, John Paulsen implemented structure and formalized the club by arranging the charter, and Jack Brow fostered

SPC founding members

Springfield Polo Club

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an emphasis on public relations that he soon shared with Jim Page when he joined. The club image was well-managed from the beginning, despite its members being quite a wild group that placed a high importance on the social aspect of the club. “Ross and Rob’s Disco” was present anywhere the club gathered to ensure the party was always going strong.

THE EARLY YEARS

The first home of the Springfield Polo Club was at the Thunderbird Ranch belonging to founding member Reg Gibson, a popular country music artist and television personality. Reg owned an arena that he previously used with his cutting horses, and this controlled environment was selected for the club’s first match. The problem was that the ceiling was too low and this resulted in more light bulbs broken than goals scored! Enthusiastic, undeterred, and still with no idea what they were doing, the club continued practicing in a small pasture behind Reg’s arena throughout their first season. Many a polo day was concluded around a campfire with Reg playing and singing late into the night, beginning to bond this ambitious group of local horsemen.

Moving forward, Ross Fargey’s nearby sheep pasture was used for practice games while Reg hosted Sunday Polo matches. Both properties are located within a half mile of the Birds Hill Provincial Park boundary, and within its first two seasons, the club found its ideal home on a natural sand-based field in the centre of the nearly 9,000-acre park. Sunday matches were played in the park while Tuesday and Thursday evening practices were held at Fargey’s. The proximity of all these fields was important because none of the club members owned a horse trailer, requiring that everyone rode to and from the games. It was a real game of neighbours. As the club grew in membership, newcomers from the area swarmed by horseback and simply joined into the action on whatever horse they had access to with all different breeds, shapes, and sizes learning the game as their riders learned simultaneously. The SPC would ultimately grow to a playing membership of around 50 members by the mid 1990’s as the club began to shift toward a focus on higher calibre horses to improve the level of play. While any horse would do in the early days, many of the players that took the game up were cowboys with cutting horses that transitioned well into the polo that they were trying to play.

To limit the number of miles players had to ride to and from the games, the club eventually purchased a two-horse trailer. In an organized fashion, members would drop their horses at the playing fields then drive to the next member’s property and leave the trailer there for them to use until all dozen or more members had their horses at the fields. Since the process of shuttling horses was used for the trips home as well, it was not a good thing to have the last turn in line! In the following seasons, individual members began to invest in their own two-horse trailers or come up with creative ways to move horses by repurposing buses or using grain trucks. Very few members even owned a pick-up truck so cars were used for towing, most notably Robert Chernetz’s ‘68 El Camino and Guy Kling’s ‘71 Mustang Convertible. The rag-tag introduction of horse transportation throughout the SPC membership would soon prove useful for longer distance travels.

The energy that was spent chasing the highs of polo in the club’s early days was truly remarkable and several of the second generation players who started young continued to play for over four decades as the club evolved.

“THE BEULAH BLUES”

Guy Kling was a founding member of the Springfield Polo Club in 1973, and his three sisters, Hedy, Merryann and Jean, all followed, as did his brother, Wilf, who is still an active member today. When Guy moved to Birtle to take up farming in 1976, he commuted back and forth to the Springfield Polo Club at 3.5 hours each way to play as often as he could. Determined to reduce his time on the road, he formed a small off-shoot club of SPC members in their farming community. For a number of years, the “Beulah Blues,” as they were called, played as a travelling team in Springfield tournaments, while also hosting their own tournament the entire Springfield club would attend. An active alfalfa field was used, and in order to play, visiting players would need to help move the Kling’s hay. All visitors would head out to the tournament on the Friday and follow the baler to stack thousands of 100-pound round bales by hand onto horse-drawn wagons. The field was then mowed once it was cleared. The energy that was spent chasing the highs of polo in the club’s early days was truly remarkable and several of the second generation players who started young continued to play for over four decades as the club evolved.

CURRENT CLUB FACILITIES

After those early seasons at the Thunderbird Ranch and Ross Fargey’s sheep pasture, the club’s current location at Birds Hill Provincial Park has served it well for 45 years and undergone extensive improvements. The natural sand that lies beneath most of the nearly 9,000-acre park provides exceptional drainage, but the club found out early that it also requires irrigation if it is going to play host to a nice polo field. In the late 1970s, the first irrigation system used by the SPC was a series of aluminum pipes that required considerable labour amongst club members. This system was replaced when the club pooled resources to buy its first travelling gun irrigation system in the late 80s.

Further big changes came when the Pan Am Games arrived in 1999. In 1995, SPC member Paul Hrynchuk Jr. was serving as the President of the Manitoba Horse Council. Both he and SPC President Bruce King played an integral role to involve the polo club in the upcoming event by arranging to have some of the club’s space used for the Pan Am cross country course. This required an expansion of the area, and the result was a second field added beyond the one-and-a-half that existed already. If the levelling and creation of a new field wasn’t noteworthy enough, a six- figure irrigation system with 5-inch underground pipe running 400 yards along the end zone of both fields was installed, along with a brand new well and pump provided with its own power source. With testing in preparation for the Pan Am Games estimating 300 feet of sand beneath the Springfield Polo Club’s fields, the fields were determined to be ideal in that they could handle rain as well as a lack of rain using irrigation. The Hrynchuk and Page families both maintained the fields for many years, along with Wilf Kling and then Dan Brewin in the mid-2000s. The Smith family took over the field management around 2014, with Spencer running the sprinkler and his children, Garrett, Katie, and Regan, dividing the mowing duties until Garrett took over the sprinkler responsibilities in 2018.

THE TOURNAMENTS

Polo tournaments have been a part of the Springfield Polo Club fabric since the club’s origin nearly 50 years ago. The Canada Day Invitational has been the longest standing

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tournament at the SPC, dating back to the beginning years and running up to present day in 2020. Shortly after the SPC became mobile, reciprocal relationships were forged by travelling to other clubs. Duluth and Minneapolis (Minnesota), Sioux Falls and Pierre (South Dakota), along with Iowa City and Des Moines (Iowa) were all common destinations in the upper U.S. circles and in return, the clubs all came to SPC’s Canada Day Invitational. Relationships also developed

1 Bud Tyler, Mona Fargey, Dayelle Fargey and Kyle Fargey at Twin City Polo Club, Minneapolis, MN 2 1970s club photo 3 Gary Senft on “Jupiter” and Blake McClarty 4 Glen Greenaway Memorial 5 Jonah, Colleen, Paul, Salsa and Hannah Hrynchuk alongside Cesar Basaldua

Springfield Polo Club

throughout Western Canada to include reciprocal visits to and from Calgary and later Black Diamond, Grande Prairie, Edmonton, Kelowna, and eventually Saskatoon. The Canada Day Invitational has hosted as many as eight visiting teams competing with three or four local teams in the upper level, and several home and away teams in the middle and lower levels. Tournament dinners typically involved 150 people.

Throughout the decades, many seasons featured four or five local tournaments for SPC members. A women’s tournament was often held at the club, although not always annually. Additionally, the Accra Cup, The Black Ice Cream Cup (for two decades), and later the Realtors Cup and Greenaway Cup (for a decade each) were all named events that helped fill the SPC membership’s summer weekend schedules.

Success with the SPC’s ‘Wind’er Up and Shut’er Down’ tournament, held in September, began to overtake the Canada Day weekend in popularity by the mid-2000s, becoming the tournament that the majority of long-distance travellers would reserve for their weekend in Springfield. Recently, the September tournament was moved to late August and renamed the Spencer Smith Memorial in 2019. Spencer’s wife Sue organized a large dinner and developed a new trophy topped by his Rich Roenisch bronze, while his son Garrett made the polo arrangements. Since Spencer was the primary energy behind SPC

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tournaments for decades, it was Garrett’s turn to ensure that everything was in place for the guests, and the tournament was played on well-prepared fields with a professional umpire present. With the gracious generosity of several hosting families, both present and past members of the club, the enthusiastic commitment of so many travelling and local players, and the help of SPC’s remarkable sand fields, it is a tournament that the entire club is very happy with and thankful to have had such support in creating.

THE PONIES

As the club’s game of polo sped up and the thoroughbred horse became the breed of choice, many trips to the Assiniboia Downs racetrack have been made to select from a constant flow of high-quality horses looking for a second home. These retired racehorses make up the majority of the club’s horses alongside select homebreds.

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POLO SCHOOLS

In 2014, the Hrynchuk family started a polo school at their Bar 5 Polo Farm under the instruction of their Mexican professional, Cesar Basaldua. The school enjoyed much success for three seasons with a considerable number of new prospects trying out the great sport of polo. In order to help build the membership of the SPC, Rocking S Polo (Spencer & Sue Smith and family) stepped forward to carry the momentum that Bar 5 had gained and help the club continue to offer a polo school. Rocking S Polo School began in 2017 under the instruction of Garrett Smith with assistance from his brother, Regan, and support from their long-time Mexican professional, Isaias Palma Franco. In 2020, there were almost 20 students who took lessons, ranging in age from 12-76! Along with regular lessons, many students enjoy the “Saturday Slow Chukkers” that are in place for those students who are ready for game-type action in a coached environment. The students have brought a new vibrancy to the club and many are out lending a helping hand during Sunday games as well as bringing yummy treats to the barbeques, all of which adds to the wonderful culture that exists at the Springfield Polo Club.

THE FAMILIES

The Fargey family began a club that has remained incredibly strong over the years, thanks to the help of so many passionate families. The King, McClarty, and Smith families have been bringing pros in consistently since they first endeavored to bring Alan Friedman up from the Sarasota Polo Club in 1993. Rafael (Canelo) Silvestre and Isaias Palma Franco have each been members of SPC’s polo family for the past 20+ years, improving the level of play and calibre of horses with training methods learned from the renowned Gracida family in Mexico. The Hrynchuk and Brewin families brought in additional pros in the mid-2000s, and Wilf Kling continues to employ Chava Pina Reyes to present day.

In 1991, Bruce King assumed the role of Captain for the Springfield Polo Club and has remained Captain, or Vice-Captain, alongside Spencer Smith, since then. Gary Senft is the longest running consecutive playing member of the Springfield Polo Club. With 47 seasons of playing under his belt so far, along with announcing games he isn’t in, Gary has further helped as the SPC’s representative within the Manitoba Horse Council. Paul Hrynchuk Sr. was a founding member and their family became the first three generation family of playing members at the SPC when Jonah Hrynchuk began playing in 2014. All of these families have been pillars in the club since the point when they each joined the SPC and bought into the shared reward of great times spent alongside even better friends by playing, holding leadership roles, hiring pros, travelling to away tournaments, hosting parties, and hosting out-of-town guests and horses. The SPC’s newer families, such as the Bulls, Kellers and Savards, have all come through the polo schools and help to keep the Springfield Polo Club a great place for family-oriented fun, and competitive polo.

1 Regan Smith with “Big White” and “Little White” 2 Ricardo Garcia hooks Rafael (Canelo) Silvestre in the SPC’s Wind ‘er up and Shut ‘er Down tourney 3 Spencer Smith on “Jackie” 4 Canelo hooks Isaias 5 Regan Smith chases his sister Katie 6 Isaias Palma Franco, Garrett Smith, Spencer Smith, Bruce King, and Regan Smith in Grande Prairie 7 Rafael (Canelo) Silvestre, Megan, Blake, and Davis McClarty 8 Smiths and Brewins in Grande Prairie