The Lucchese Polo Team is entering its 4th year of high goal polo (20 goal tournaments and above). Team founder and Captain John Muse made his high goal debut at Santa Barbara Polo Club in 2008 on a team led by polo legend Carlos Gracida. Muse has played in Santa Barbara the past three years. In his second year there, Lucchese had a great run to the final of the 20 goal Lucchese America Cup. Although they lost the final in 2009, in 2010 Lucchese showed up committed to victory with a dominating team of Muse, Andres Weisz, Jason Crowder, and the best player in the world, Adolfo Cambiaso. The team swept the 2010 20 goal season in Santa Barbara, winning the Lucchese America Cup as well as the Robert Skene Cup and the prestigious Pacific Coast Open, considered to be the most important and competitive tournament of the American summer season. The team had a perfect season, winning every game.
Lucchese Polo has also had considerable success in polo’s winter capital at International Polo Club of Palm Beach. This winter they will try to build on their considerable success in 2010, when they won the 20 goal Ylvisaker Cup as well as the Bobby Barry Cup (Joe Barry Subsidiary).
While Muse is the captain and founder of the team, Argentine born player Andres Weisz has contributed his polo skills and horsemanship ability to the team every year since its inception. He was instrumental in selecting the team’s string of first class polo horses. The other two players on the team have changed from year to year, depending on what combination fits the handicap level of the tournaments in which the team is competing.
THE HISTORY:
Polo is one of the oldest sports in the world. It has its origin in the rough and tumble horseback games played by Mongols on the steppes of Asia. Fierce warriors would race up and down a field on tough little ponies, struggling for control of a goat’s carcass or in more gruesome tales, they would use the heads of their enemies.
When the British ruled India, they picked up the game from the native population and turned it into its current, civilized form, complete with white pants on all the players. Instead of wrestling over a goat, the players now used long bamboo mallets to strike a wooden ball between goal posts. The name of the sport derives from the word pulu, which is the Tibetan word for ball.
THE GAME:
Today’s game of Polo features two teams of four players mounted on horseback compete to score the most goals by striking a wooden or plastic ball with a mallet through goalposts at each end of the field. The field is 300 yards by 160 yards, the goalposts at each end of the field are spaced 8 yards apart. The players are constantly in motion, only stopping play for the end of a chukker (a chukker being the 7:30 minute period of play)or a foul, much like soccer or hockey.
THE PLAYERS:
Polo is very international sport. Often the players on a team, particularly at the high goal level, might be from four different countries. Argentina dominates the ranks of high rated players, but the US, England, Mexico, and South Africa also produce many talented players. Polo also draws a very unique type of player: many captains of industry and finance are drawn to the speed and power of the game and the opportunity to play on the team they are sponsoring.
THE HORSES:
Polo is unique to team sports for the partnership between human and horse. Most polo horses are Thoroughbred or Argentine, although any breed can play if they have the athletic ability and the mind. Training polo ponies is a long process, usually taking two to three years until the horse is “made” and can compete in tournament polo without further training. Polo ponies can have long careers, and some of the experienced horses are very canny and anticipate the game as well or better than the human players. Players will tell you that horses are 80% of the game and good polo players are constantly searching for talented horses.
- United States Polo Association
- International Polo Club of Palm Beach
- Santa Barbara Polo Club
- Asociacion Argentina de Polo
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