Need for Speed by C. Maybe Ortiz

Opposite page: Leo Benjamin attended the horse trials at Stable View in Aiken, South Carolina.

Far Left: Nancy and Leo dressed up for Aiken’s Hoofbeats Christmas Parade in 2019.

Left: Leo always has a hi-howdy for all. He zipped around the Aiken Training Track in February.

You never know who you’re riding next to. He or she may look like an overweight geezer who should have stayed back at the barn, but upon further investigation you might find the person behind the faceguard is wearing a safety vest and is a fabulous horseman with credentials to choke a pony.

Leo Benjamin is one of those polo players who could ride anything. He’s still quite fit at the age of 80 and plays regularly with the Wagener Polo Club and at his own field just east of Aiken, South Carolina. He’s come back from a serious fox hunting crash a decade ago and has become a vocal proponent of the inflatable safety vest.

Born in New York City in 1940, Leo developed his equestrian skills in a hurry when he began riding hundreds of strange and questionable horses in the sales ring. He was the captain of his school’s riding team and knocked out a degree from the Thompson School of Agriculture, a division of the University of New Hampshire.

At college he met and soon married his likeminded wife Nancy who was also born in the city and always wanted a horse. Nancy coached the Green Mountain Valley School ski racing team and had a number of skiers who took riding lessons from her. Sixty years later she notes that life with Leo has been “one adventure after another.”

Leo had become involved in the open jumping world and rode for trainers including “Brooklyn” Benny O’Meara. In an April 1966 New York Times obituary O’Meara was described as an “internationally known horse dealer, showman and rider [who] was killed today when his refurbished World War II fighter plane crashed into a creek near here [Leesburg, VA].” Though he died before the age of 30, O’Meara was a dashing horseman who won tons of titles, especially with Jacks Or Better. A classic photo shows them clearing a 6’9” wall at Madison Square Garden with a flapping right stirrup leather.

So it was difficult for Leo Benjamin to evolve from working horses into getting a “real job” to support his oncoming family of three children. However, Leo is a natural at sales and has established himself over the last 60 years as an ultimate idea man.

Sugarbush Polo’s instructor extraordinaire Holly Ward entered Leo’s life in the mid-1970s. Sugarbush also had a field in downtown Waitsfield, Vermont, where gents like Dick Kellogg, Michael Hertzberg, Dick King and New York restauranteur Vincent Sardi would enjoy cooler summer weekends. Arthur Williams played until he was 80 and Leo feels he has achieved his dream of the privileges extended to Arthur—undefended sort-offast breaks to goal.

“Holly and I were always trying to buy cheap horses,” Leo remembers. The Chambers brothers—Mike, Dale and John—played a part in their plans in the Northeast. Even after Holly finally traded the Vermont winters for Ocala, he would receive regular visits from Leo and they

Right: Leo welcomed Michelle Raab to his polo field for a potluck lunch to view the eclipse in August 2017.

Far Right: Still quite lithe at 65, Leo mounted without a block for the Relay for Life polo benefit at Richland Creek Polo Club at Lake Oconee, Georgia in 2005.

A ball is waiting on the end line just for Leo to warm up at the Broken Arrow field. would check out horse deals in the Florida neighborhoods. They observed the Palm Beach scene as 1980 approached and Bill Ylvisaker’s dream of international polo was being realized.

Leo also had business that took him to Haiti and he would occasionally hop over to the Dominican Republic to play at Casa de Campo.

Sugarbush players would often make the four

hour haul to play in Canada. In the early 1980s, Leo won the Rolex tournament in Montreal, an approximately 8-goal event, with Carlos and Eddy Martinez.

By the turn of the century, winters in the Far North were getting harder to justify. Gene Gass invited Leo and Nancy to check out Aiken, South Carolina, and they settled on a section of nearly 100

Fox hunters were invited to Clint Nangle and Barbara Parker’s top-of-the-hill Overbrook Polo Club in 2012 for the fun but competitive Tallyho Cup. Leo is far right.

acres with entrances on Bethcar Church and Bluffwood roads. Dr. Dave Smith from Chicago had set up a two-field club just down the road and it soon took the name of Edisto Polo Club. Leo and Nancy’s Bluffwood Farm offered turn-out and housing set-ups for four additional players or trainers, along with a large stick-and-ball field.

The Bluffwood polo field was the site of a hearty gathering of horse folks for the eclipse on August 21, 2017. A couple generations of Benjamins shared a late potluck lunch with more than 50 friends and were dazzled by the few minutes of eerie neardarkness in mid-afternoon. Leo has been mowing through the summer of 2020 and holds informal practices when a quorum gathers.

Fox hunting has always been on Leo’s equestrian schedule, including the earn-your-stripes trip to hunt in Ireland. However, Leo had a major spill in Blackville, South Carolina, that took more than a year of recuperation. He was 70 years old at that point and was rendered unconscious for a month. The Whiskey Road Fox Hounds regulars were working some less-traveled country when Leo’s 17.2 Thoroughbred/Clydesdale Jake was one of two horses to misjudge a ditch in tall grass. It took a while for medical attention to arrive.

But Leo was determined to return to action. He and Nancy have participated in any number of Aiken equestrian events in the past 15 years. He took her along on one of the open trail rides offered by Aiken Hounds through the Hitchcock Woods in 2018. They rode in the last two Hoofbeats Christmas parades through downtown Aiken and enthusiastically searched for bunny droppings at

their friend and former Sugarbush teammate Samantha Spitler’s mounted Easter Egg Hunt.

Just before COVID-19 changed the rules of engagement, Leo showed up with bells on and a striking grey Thoroughbred for the “Ride The Rails” benefit event at the Aiken Training Track on February 23. Assisted by track volunteer and polo instructor Ken Cresswell, riders were allowed to ease once around the 5/8 of a mile track and then drop down to the rail to go as fast as they desired on the second lap. Leo, decked in his trusty safety vest, showed few signs of slowing down. •

Leo and his trademark paint mare Splenda carried the ball in a practice at Billy Raab’s Broken Arrow field. She was purchased at the Aiken Polo Pony sale in 2007. Splenda currently plays for Abby Grant at Maryland Polo Club.