Epc Vw Polo

[Graciano Goudreau]

Polois a ball game that is played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports.[9] It originated in ancient Persia (modern-day Iran), dating back over 2,000 years. Initially played by Persian nobility as a training exercise for cavalry units, polo eventually spread to other parts of the world. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ball through the opposing team's goal. Each team has four mounted riders, and the game usually lasts one to two hours, divided into periods called chukkas or chukkers.

Polo has been called "the sport of kings",[10] and has become a spectator sport for equestrians and high society, often supported by sponsorship. The progenitor of polo and its variants existed from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD, as an equestrian game played by the nomadic Iranian and Turkic peoples.[4] In Persia, where the sport evolved and developed, it was at first a training game for cavalry units, usually the royal guard or other elite troops.[5] It is now popular around the world, with well over 100 member countries in the Federation of International Polo, played professionally in 16 countries, and was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1936.

Arena polo is an indoor or semi-outdoor variant with similar rules, and is played with three riders per team. The playing field is smaller, enclosed and usually of compacted sand or fine aggregate, and often indoors. Arena polo has more maneuvering due to space limitations, and uses an air-inflated ball slightly larger than the hard solid ball used in field polo. Standard mallets are used, though slightly larger-head arena mallets are an option.

Valuable for training cavalry, the game was played from Constantinople, where Emperor Theodosius II constructed a polo ground early in the 5th century,[16] to Japan by the Middle Ages. The game also spread south to Arabia and to India and Tibet.

After the Muslim conquests to the Ayyubid and Mameluke dynasties of Egypt and the Levant, their elites favoured it above all other sports. Notable sultans such as Saladin and Baybars were known to play it and encourage it in their courts.[19] Saladin was known for being a skilled polo player, which contributed to his cavalry training.[20][21] Polo sticks were featured as one of the suits on the Mamluk precursor to modern-day playing cards. Europeans transformed the polo stick suit into the "clubs" of the "Latin" decks, as polo was little known to them at that time.[22]

The modern, international, game of polo is derived from the form played in Manipur, India, where it was known as sagol kāngjei. Also in use in Manipur were the game's Tibetic names, polo or pulu, referring to the wooden ball, and it was these terms, anglicised, which were adopted for the sport's name in its slow spread to the west. A European polo club was established in the town of Silchar in Assam, India, in 1859, the English tea planters having learnt it from Manipuri incomers.[7][26]

The origins of the game in Manipur are traced to yet earlier precursors of sagol kangjei.[27] This was one of three forms of hockey in Manipur, the other ones being field hockey (called khong kangjei) and wrestling-hockey (called mukna kangjei). Local rituals such as those connected to the Ibudhou Marjing, the winged-pony god of polo and the creation-ritual episodes of the Lai Haraoba festival enacting the life of his son, Khoriphaba, the polo-playing god of sports. These may indicate an origin earlier than the historical records of Manipur. Later, according to Cheitharol Kumbaba, a royal chronicle of King Kangba, who ruled Manipur much earlier than Nongda Lairen Pakhangba (33 CE) introduced sagol kangjei ('kangjei on horseback'). Further regular playing of this game commenced in 1605, during the reign of King Khagemba under newly framed rules of the game.

The oldest polo ground in the world is the Imphal Polo Ground in Manipur State. The history of this polo ground is contained in the royal chronicle Cheitharol Kumbaba starting from 33 CE. Lieutenant (later Major General) Joseph Ford Sherer, the father of modern polo, visited the state and played on this polo ground in the 1850s. Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India visited the state in 1901 and measured the polo ground as "225 yards long and 110 yards wide" (206 m 101 m).[30]

The World Champions Polo League was launched in Jaipur in 2016. It is a new version of polo, similar to the Twenty20 format of cricket. The pitch was made smaller and accommodated a large audience. The first event of the World Champions Polo League took place in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, with six teams and room for 10,000 spectators. The rules were changed[35] and the duration of matches made shorter.[36]

Polo was brought to many parts of the Americas, but in Argentina, it took off like nowhere else. Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English immigrants in the Argentine pampas started practising polo during their free time, and eventually some of them began to put together games. Among them, David Shennan is credited with having organised the first formal polo game of the country in 1875, at Estancia El Negrete, located in Buenos Aires Province.

The sport spread quickly among the skillful gauchos, and several clubs opened in the following years in the towns of Venado Tuerto, Caada de Gmez, Quilmes, Flores and later (1888) Hurlingham. In 1892 The River Plate Polo Association was founded and constituted the basis for the current Asociacin Argentina de Polo. In the Olympic Games held in Paris in 1924 a team composed of Juan Miles, Enrique Padilla, Juan Nelson, Arturo Kenny, G. Brooke Naylor and A. Pea achieved the first gold medal in the nation's Olympic history. The title was defended at the 1936 Berlin Games with players Manuel Andrada, Andrs Gazzotti, Roberto Cavanagh, Luis Duggan, Juan Nelson, Diego Cavanagh, and Enrique Alberdi.

The game spread across the country, and Argentina is often credited as the capital of polo;[37] Argentina is also noted for having the largest contingent of 10 handicap players out of any other country.[38]

The three major polo tournaments in Argentina, known as "Triple Corona" ("Triple Crown"), are Hurlingham Polo Open, Tortugas Polo Open and Palermo Polo Open. Polo season usually lasts from October to December.[39]

James Gordon Bennett Jr. on 16 May 1876 organised what was billed as the first polo match in the United States at Dickel's Riding Academy at 39th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City.[41] The historical record states that James Gordon Bennett established the Westchester Polo Club on 6 May 1876, and on 13 May 1876, the Jerome Park Racetrack in Westchester County (now Bronx County) was the site of the "first" American outdoor polo match.

H. L. Herbert, James Gordon Bennett and August Belmont Jr. financed the original New York Polo Grounds. Herbert stated in a 1913 article[42] that they formed the Westchester Club after the "first" outdoor game was played on 13 May 1876. This contradicts the historical record of the club being established before the Jerome Park game.

There is ample evidence that the first to play polo in America were actually the English Texans. The Galveston News reported on 2 May 1876 that Denison, Texas had a polo club which was before James Gordon Bennett established his Westchester Club or attempted to play the "first" game.[43] The Denison team sent a letter to James Gordon Bennett challenging him to a match. The challenge was published 2 June 1876, in The Galveston Daily News. By the time the article came out on 2 June, the Denison Club had already received a letter from Bennett indicating the challenge was offered before the "first" games in New York.[44]

There is an urban legend that the first game of polo in America was played in Boerne, Texas, at retired British officer Captain Glynn Turquand's famous Balcones Ranch.[45] The Boerne, Texas, legend also has plenty of evidence pointing to the fact that polo was played in Boerne before James Gordon Bennett Jr. ever picked up a polo mallet.[46]

During the early part of the 20th century, under the leadership of Harry Payne Whitney, polo changed to become a high-speed sport in the United States, differing from the game in England, where it involved short passes to move the ball towards the opposition's goal. Whitney and his teammates used the fast break, sending long passes downfield to riders who had broken away from the pack at a full gallop. In 1909 a United States team defeated an English team with ease.[33]

The rules of polo are written to include the safety of both players and horses. Games are monitored by umpires. A whistle is blown when an infraction occurs, and penalties are awarded. Strategic plays in polo are based on the "line of the ball", an imaginary line that extends through the ball in the line of travel. This line traces the ball's path and extends past the ball along that trajectory. The line of the ball defines rules for players to approach the ball safely. The "line of the ball" changes each time the ball changes direction. The player who hits the ball generally has the right of way, and other players cannot cross the line of the ball in front of that player. As players approach the ball, they ride on either side of the line of the ball giving each access to the ball. A player can cross the line of the ball when it does not create a dangerous situation. Most infractions and penalties are related to players improperly crossing the line of the ball or the right of way. When a player has the line of the ball on their right, they have the right of way. A "ride-off" is when a player moves another player off the line of the ball by making shoulder-to-shoulder contact with the other players' horses.

The defending player has a variety of opportunities for their team to gain possession of the ball. They can push the opponent off the line or steal the ball from the opponent. Another common defensive play is called "hooking." While a player is taking a swing at the ball, their opponent can block the swing by using their mallet to hook the mallet of the player swinging at the ball. A player may hook only if they are on the side where the swing is being made or directly behind an opponent. A player may not purposely touch another player, another player's tack, or a pony with their mallet. Unsafe hooking is a foul that will result in a penalty shot being awarded. For example, it is a foul for a player to reach over an opponent's mount in an attempt to hook.

3a8082e126