Modern polo . erate ones ; butin that case must forego the pleasures of first-classmatches. It is true to a certain extent that price pre-vents men playing polo, especially when good poniesare wanted all in a moment; but the fact that traininggreatly enhances the value of a pony, enables many aman to play polo who could not otherwise do so. Afair player, who is also a fine horseman, need spendvery little on his polo, if he looks about for likelyyoung animals, and if he takes the time and troubleto train them when found. More and more goodponies are being bred every season, and the numberof bre
Modern polo . erate ones ; butin that case must forego the pleasures of first-classmatches. It is true to a certain extent that price pre-vents men playing polo, especially when good poniesare wanted all in a moment; but the fact that traininggreatly enhances the value of a pony, enables many aman to play polo who could not otherwise do so. Afair player, who is also a fine horseman, need spendvery little on his polo, if he looks about for likelyyoung animals, and if he takes the time and troubleto train them when found. More and more goodponies are being bred every season, and the numberof breeders is steadily increasing. Doubtless, the CHOOSING A POLO PONY. S7 efforts of the Polo Pony Stud Book Society willhave a good effect in this direction. As the methodof training raw ponies is described in Chapter V.,I will now pass on to discuss the kind of pony weought to select. The recently made limit of admirably in England. Experience showsthat, as a rule, the increase of strength, speed and. Photo bv] [M. H. HAYES. Fig. 38.—Mr. W. J. Jones Luna. weight in ponies over does not compensate forthe loss of handiness, although it is undoubtedlypossible to make some horses of 15 hands, and evenmore, perfectly handy for polo. Besides, as I havealready said, it takes far longer to train the averagebig pony than the average small one. Not long ago, the Hurlingham Committee dis- 88 CHOOSING A POLO PONY. [Chap. IV. covered that the old rule of challenging a pony by anyplaying member was a failure ; because ponies whichwere known to be over-height were constantly played,and there was not a single instance of a pony beingchallenged. The rule was therefore altered, andnow all ponies which have not played in certaintournaments must be measured. During the lastfew seasons I have been fortunate to ride in manymatches two wonderfully good big ponies, Luna(Fig. 38) and Matchbox (Fig. 39), which measurednearly , and were admitted under the rule ofexisting polo ponies.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecthorses, bookyear1902
