Henry Fisher
Professional polo player

“My love of horses began with hunting in Petworth,” says Henry. “After that I watched a couple of polo games, joined the Pony Club when I was 13 and started playing at Cowdray shortly afterwards. But I had been stick and balling (where you try to hit a ball into the goalpost without swiping the horse’s shins or missing the ball) from when I was about 11 years old.”

It’s common for children to learn the sport at a young age. Henry tells one of his funniest memories of watching a little girl and a little boy in a Pony Club match. “The little boy had been told to mark the girl, wherever she went,” says Henry. “Unfortunately the little girl’s horse bolted, charging off the pitch and into the ploughed field behind, closely followed by the little boy – still marking!”

A seasoned professional, Henry now plays in matches all over the world. As our summer draws to a close, so does the polo season, and Henry heads to warmer climes such as New Zealand, Argentina, America, South Africa and Australia to continue the sport before finally returning to the UK in April.

“I prefer playing polo in Midhurst because it’s my home,” says Henry. “And after Argentina, England is the most prestigious tournament in the world.
“I’m just really happy to be able to do something that I love.”


Sandra Blackiston
Polo groom

“I have been a polo groom for 30 years this season and could get a horse ready for a game with my eyes shut,” says Sandra, who looks after Angelos Damakos’s four horses as well as Lady Cowdray’s two. “Your heart has got to be in it and I think of it more as a hobby than a job.”
Sandra has groom friends from all over the world. “We’re a very close-knit family and everybody helps each other out.” In true Jilly Cooper style Sandra admits that there’s always lots of good gossip. “I could write a book about what I’ve seen since I started,” she says.

There are three levels in polo, low, medium and high goal. The higher up you go as a groom, the harder you have to work. “I used to work for high goal in my younger days and I would start at around 4am and work through until 8pm,” says Sandra. The ponies normally have 45 minutes’ exercise a day with one day off a week. They start each day with road work and walking to strengthen their tendons, then trotting and cantering. “The aim is to get them as fit as possible for the matches,” says Sandra.


Emma Cave-Toye
Conference and events manager at the Spread Eagle Hotel

During the polo season thousands descend on what becomes a very bustling town. For Emma, this means ordering in as much Veuve Clicquot champagne (the drink of the tournament) as she can get her hands on.
“We normally sell around 400 cases of the stuff,” says Emma. The Spread Eagle is very close to the grounds and the hotel is actually part of the Cowdray estate so for the Gold Cup weekend they’re always fully booked.
South Americans come over because the sport is very big in Argentina and they get lots of repeat visitors from South Africa. “It’s always nice to see international guests in Midhurst,” says Emma.

“I took my daughter along to a game three years ago when Prince Charles was playing,” she added. “It was really good fun, especially descending on to the pitch after each chukka to help push down all the lifted turf.
“There’s something quintessentially Midhurst about polo, a picnic and a glass of Pimms on a beautiful summer’s day,” she says.


Greg Glue
Polosplice, in the heart of Cowdray

Polo is in the Glue family, explains Greg. “My mother was a groom and my brother was a professional polo player and he is now a professional horse dealer.”

In one season the firm repairs around 6,000 sticks and makes about 1,500 branded new ones. It’s a long process, says Greg, as the cane arrives in large bundles and they are raw, bent out of shape and about 8-9ft long. He spends a week out in Malaysia going through around 10,000 to find 1,000 good sticks. “We used to be able to get two polo sticks from one cane but not now it’s normally just one because the players want thickness with lots of notches. A player thinks the more notches the better. You never know if a stick is going to be any good until you finish it.” Once cut, the root is sanded down and straightened. Then the handle is made by adding additional wood before it is sanded and shaped. It’s a continuous shaping process before it is bound with tape and glued. The grips and loops are added, then the bottom tapes are applied and finally the heads go on.

“Some players have a preference and other times they leave it to us,” adds Greg. “Sometimes you get it right, other times they say it’s too heavy, light or too whippy. If a player picks one or two they really like we will try to replicate it by looking through hundreds of canes to try to match it exactly.” A good professional player will have between 30 and 60 canes a year but they do break quite easily and here they cost around £75 each.

There are no left-handed players in polo and all players have to carry their sticks in their right hands. During the Eighties there were a couple of lefties but when they retired, it was banned.

The most common repair is called a splice where a cane has shattered or broken in half. “We cut the old bit out and cut a new bit into the original length of the mallet, tape it up, glue it and put the old head back on,” says Greg. “Mallets do get worn down and often need replacing. Years ago, back in the Eighties, it took six months to get your mallet repaired. I brought it down to six weeks and now it’s six days. The professionals don’t want to wait.”


Terry Hanlon
Commentator

“If you’re no good at polo but you still want to play then the rule is you must have money,” says Terry. “If you’re very good you don’t need the money.”

England is the best place in Europe to play, according to Terry, and the most famous ground in the whole world is Cowdray Park. Midhurst is polo.
“It all started in 1975. We had a wonderful polo manager called Bolshy Tatham, an old colonel. One weekend he said: ‘Where’s the commentator? Hanlon, you get up here and commentate. You’ve always got enough to say, get up and say it. Don’t argue with me, boy.’ I went up have been doing it ever since.” Terry believes that many people are under the impression that it’s a game for the aristocracy. “To a degree that was so but the late Lord Cowdray was happy to include anybody who wanted to play because he loved it so much and he was such a gregarious man – he had all this and wanted everyone to enjoy it.”

Each team has a patron and it’s they who are the financial backing for the team. They employ three professionals to make up the team of four. “It’s the last game in the world where you can buy a team and be in it if you’re a millionaire,” adds Terry. “Most teams cost a minimum of £500,000 to a million in the high goal section.”

So what do you know?