After a morning of Ballooning we went to the Houston Polo Club to enjoy some polo. Neither of us had ever seen polo so we were excited to see what it was all about. It was a lot less posh then we expected though the sponsor ads were for boats, champagne and vacation homes so it was a slightly different demographic then other sporting events. The game is broken down into 6 chukkas (which are 7 minutes long), there are four players per team and each must trade horses after each chukka and a horse can only ride during two chukkas (but not consecutively)- so there are a lot of horses! At half time (after the third chukka) every one is invited onto the playing field to stomp divots and drink free champagne - count me in! The horses were beautiful and so amazing to watch them be controlled so quickly and boy do they run fast! Like hockey you can "check" in polo and throw your horse into someone elses and you can hook the mallets as well but only a certain way to avoid hurting the horses. We learned a lot and it was a really fun afternoon.
The opening of the match- the players were introduced
Notice the horse has no mane and it's tail is either wrapped or braided so it doesn't get caught in the mallet swing
Checking the horses
Horse protective equipment
Stay tuned for exciting news on our recent trip to Louisiana....
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