Polo isn’t your everyday sport but our introduction to polo can ease you in gently. The highly competitive equestrian ball game is particularly popular among The Royal Family and although tricky at first, once the basics are mastered, we’ve heard it’s great fun.

Not long ago, a number of colleagues went down to Ascot Park Polo Club to take part in our Introduction to Polo Experience.

We caught up with Ciana and Martin to see how their day went…

Ciana:

“Ascot Park Polo Club makes a fantastic day out. Located close to London, it felt like an idyllic location to be introduced to the oldest team sport in the world, polo.

We were welcomed by the team and an instructor took us through the rules before we got on the horses. I’d been horse riding many times before but my polo pony was by far the easiest kind of horse I’d ever ridden – so attuned to the instructions and with only one hand needed to guide them (the other one needs to be free to use the mallet).

After getting used to riding with one hand, we started trying to hit the ball from one end of the polo field to the other and once we all got the hang of things, we split into two teams to play a few chukkas (short periods playing polo).

I had a great day out and although I wasn’t the best player on the day, it was still so much fun and I was on the winning team!”

Martin:

“Ascot Park Polo Club was a brilliant location and we were looked after extremely well.

Having never ridden a horse before (well, only once when I was about eight years old), I was a little unsure of how the day was going to go, but the instructors were great and the polo horses were absolutely amazing, they have been trained extremely well. I went from never riding a horse before, to cantering whilst hitting balls with the mallets – all within 40 minutes of riding! I was really impressed with the instructors and the ease of manoeuvring the horses.

We started off learning how to hit the balls, which I picked up pretty easily as I play a lot of baseball and cricket, but combining that with riding was a bit of a challenge to start; I got a little too eager hitting the balls and nearly fell off the horse. But as they say ‘I got back on the horse’ and kept going and ended up scoring two goals in the game, one the length of the field goal!

All in all it was a fantastic day and such a great experience”.

Why not unleash your competitive streak and push yourself to the limit. Take a look at our great selection of sports classes and adventure activities.