Polo team hits the road without horses

By Christina Griffin

Walk into the University of Connecticut horse barn and get a sense of all that goes into the upkeep and use of the polo ponies. All around the horses are saddles, bridles, bales of hay and a wide variety of equipment needed to tack up before a polo match.

While athletes in other sports throw their uniforms and equipment into a gym bag when their team travels, just how does the polo team travel as far as Virginia with their hay-burning, four-legged pieces of equipment?

Bottom line: they don't.

When the team plays an away game that is not part of a tournament, it uses horses provided by the opposing team. The team does bring some hay and grain from its home barn as a way of subsidizing the cost of supplies for the home team, but the UConn polo ponies stay in Storrs.

The one exception is when the team travels to a central location for a tournament. In that case, all teams bring their own horses. The UConn horses are then towed by a pick-up truck in a trailer that holds eight equines.

Is it fair to use horses ridden and trained by competitors? As with other sports, there are rules set in place that make it fair for everyone. Caitlin Tufts, a freshman on the team, showed a chart in the UConn barn that determines who gets to ride which horse during practices and home games.

Players rotate throughout the game to keep the players on the home team from dominating the game with a horse they always ride for practices and games.

For example, Tufts said she and Mo work well together. But if they were allowed to play together all the time, it would provide them an unfair advantage. By rotating riders among the horses, she and Mo are not a team for an entire game.

Traveling without the horses is one of the few ways the polo team saves money. The sport, which costs each player $70 a week just for practice time, is very expensive. Tufts explained that when the team flies to games, it often plays more than one team in a particular area to help cut costs. This also allows the team to advance faster because it will play multiple schools in the same week.

Polo requires not only physical and emotional dedication, but also a financial dedication only a horse-lover would understand.