Know thy chukka – a guide to polo

THE 2017 Veuve Clicquot Masters Polo will take place at the Val de Vie Estate on Saturday, March 5.

If you’re attending this glamorous event, brush up your polo knowledge with this guide to the rules. Polo handicaps range from -2 up to 10 goals where any player with a 3-goal rating and above is considered to be at professional level. There are only a few players in the world who have reached the expert level of 10 goals. When playing on a full-sized grass field, there are two teams and each team has four players. There are two umpires on the field and a tournament director alongside the field who assists the umpires when they don’t agree on a ruling. The polo ground is approximately 274 metres (300 yards) long, and 146m ( 160 yards) wide, if there are boards around the perimeter of the field. These boards keep the ball in play during the game. The polo grounds will also have two upright goals, one at each end of the field, and they each have two goalposts, that are 7.3m (eight yards) apart, and a goal is scored when the ball goes between the goalposts of the opposing team. A full match is made up of four to eight chukkas and each chukka is seven minutes long. At the end of the chukka, a bell is rung after which the players have a further 30 seconds before the second and final bell rings to signal the end of the chukka and the referee blows his whistle. During the match, play stops when the ball goes out of bounds or an umpire stops play because of a foul. Although we often refer to them as “polo ponies”, the breed of horse that is used in polo is in fact a thoroughbred and often these horses are retrained from the racetrack. Their speed and agility make up an important part of any polo player’s skill in a game. Because of the fastpaced nature of polo, there is too much physical exertion for one horse to be used in more than one chukka. At the professional level, a player might bring six or more horses to a match. Four riders and with a minimum of one horse for each chukka to be played, make up the polo team.

Each of the players have certain responsibilities depending on their position.

Positions are numbered 1 to 4 where player 1 plays up the field to receive balls; player 2 has the responsibility of taking the ball into the opposing team’s end of the field; player 3 will take the ball from defence to offence; and player 4 has the main responsibility for defence and distributing the ball.

Kevin Rixon scopes the area which will host the event.