ABOUT THE GAME
The traditional sport of polo is played on horseback in which the objective of the game is to score goals against an opposing team. Riders score by driving a small ball into the opposing team's goal using a long-handled mallet.
Each polo team consists of four riders and their mounts, with matches played on a grass field the size of 6 football pitches. The game is divided into chunks of time called chukkas, which in Hindi means seven minutes of play. There is a three-minute gap between chukkas to allow the players to swap horses, swig some water and shout at the worst player on the team!
Polo is probably the only sport in the world where you change ends after every goal. This is because back in the days of the Raj in India, when polo was an everyday sport for military folk, games took place in early evening and changing ends after every goal squared the odds of teams being blinded by the setting sun.
Polo is a fast, furious and passionate game, great fun to watch and even better to play.