The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
The pukka retreat where a chukka is part of the service
Coworth Park is offering beginners the chance to play polo. tries her hand
Cabral, my mount, is a compact contrivance of heaped muscle and protruding tendons, with thighs that billow and contract like wheezing lungs. His mane has been razored to resemble a strip of lawnmowed grass. His eyes, set between a white, fountain-shaped streak, are two surly brown droplets that reflect more than they reveal.
“Wait until you’re almost level with the ball. Then strike. No – don’t bend your arm when you swing!” I clamp my jaw with concentration as a volley of orders from my instructor, Ebe, fire off in the distance.
Leaning out of the saddle, I fail to hit a white ball on the ground with the mallet in my hand. I am convinced Cabral shakes his head slightly before emitting a scoffing nicker.
I am at Coworth Park, a five-star country house hotel in Ascot – the only hotel in Britain to have its own polo fields and facilities, which are managed by Guards Polo Club. I have never played polo before and ride infrequently. I have also brought my 61-year-old mother, who has ridden twice this side of the millennium – but Coworth Park has come up with a one-hour Your First Polo Experience aimed at people just like us.
The secret to Coworth Park’s success at getting novice horse riders galloping around a field chasing after polo balls is the superior pedigree of its Argentine polo horses. I lean forward and Cabral immediately starts to trot; a small squeeze with both legs and he launches into a canter, which escalates into a gallop as he senses my rising ease.
As I chase after polo balls scattered across the field, I am surprised by how responsive Cabral is to the attempts of me – a stranger – to change his direction by tugging left Your First Polo Experience (one hour) from £175 per person (individual) or £150 (group lesson) (01344 876600; dorchester collection.com). or right with the reins; the experience is smoother than steering a Jaguar saloon.
Cabral is all too aware of his magnificence. Every so often he shakes his rusty bronze coat. There’s a slight supercilious hoity toity-ness to his gait. Ebe is also a fantastic instructor: good-humoured, enthusiastic, and a fine polo player; he seems to fly across the field rather than ride – he resembles a strip of silk being whipped away by a gust of wind.
I look over to my mother half expecting to see her screwing her face up in distaste at her circumstances, in the special way she does – like a headmistress who has just swallowed a bee – but she is taking to the exercises too. “Ooooh, isn’t this marvellous!” She cooes. Her face has the same look of flummoxed but genuine joy as when I recently introduced her to Pokémon Go.
There is a tendency to categorise polo as a peculiar preoccupation of the British aristocracy, but it has an illustrious global history. As early as 600BC, mounted nomads were playing a 100-a-side version of polo in the arenaceous plains of Central Asia in preparation for internecine wars. This makes it, quite possibly, the oldest sport in the world. The British were late to the party: Her Majesty’s soldiers came across polo in India during the colonial era.
The crushing weight of polo’s history stalks me across the fields. The sense of freedom on my horse is exuberant; the concentration the game demands is all-consuming. And I find myself wondering: is this how Persian soldiers felt playing polo to prepare for battle 2,000 years ago?
Once I have hit a few balls across the field at a canter, my confidence starts to rise to match that of my horse. Ebe suggests a small game to work on basic tackling skills. My mother attempts to thwack the ball across the field with her mallet while I try and intercept by leaning in with my own stick.
Just when it threatens to disintegrate into a slightly terrifying brew of hockey and rodeo, Ebe says the lesson is nearing its end. I am reluctant for the session to conclude, and gallop around the field smacking balls until the hour is up. By the time I descend, I have already committed to more lessons.
Polo might conceivably just be as addictive as smoking, I have resolved. But as backache and bankruptcy are the most serious potential side effects, braving that first lesson is certainly worth the risk.