Fancy playing polo like a Prince?

SOME girls (and boys) never grow out of ponies. For them, a new package at the Kings Head in Cirencester promises a thrill: an overnight introduction to polo in tandem with Cirencester Park Polo Club, one of the oldest in Britain and a favourite of Princes William (pictured near left) and Harry.

Eager to see if it lives up to Jilly Cooper’s 1991 bonkbuster Polo, I arrive at the club’s vast grounds in Gloucestershire to try a chukka or two.

First we’re handed a stick like a heavy croquet mallet to practise hitting balls. The sticks are heavy and it’s hard work. Then we climb on static wooden horses and whack a few more balls, before being allowed to mount a real pony.

I’m braced for the sluggish, but safe, ride you experience on holiday hacks. But this is a revelation. The ponies turn on a coin. You must ride one-handed, leaving the right hand free for your stick. Everyone uses the same hand so that no one gets walloped from an unexpected angle.

After a hack through woodland, we attempt to marry riding one-handed with hitting the ball. It’s not easy, but we’re enthusiastic. So enthusiastic, that one of our group falls off: she swung too far out of her saddle.

Then it’s time to sip champagne while we watch the professionals — a great spectacle. Afterwards it’s back to the Kings Head, a former coaching inn-turned-boutique hotel in the centre of Cirencester, that specialises in cocktails and classic British cooking such as fish pie and Gloucester Old Spot sausages.

I’m jolly pleased to learn that Jilly has been spotted here, too.

TRAVEL FACTS

THE Polo Package at the Kings Head ( kingshead-hotel.co.uk, 01285 700 900) is from £240pp with an overnight stay and breakfast. Includes three hours of polo instruction at Cirencester Polo Academy with ll horse and equipment hire, VIP tickets to the members’ clubhouse and grandstand seats for the professional polo games in the afternoon. Quote ‘Polo Mint’. Valid for Sunday nights only.