Playing the sport of king

by Anna Barron Billingley

For Tareq Salahi and many others these days, the sport of kings has royal attractions. “Where else can you go at speeds of 40 to 45 mph and hit a ball at 110 mph with 2,000 pounds of thrust?” The owner of Oasis Winery in Hume is hooked. A self-professed polo addict, he’s been playing the sport — sort of a hockey on horseback — half his life. Salahi, 33, grew up in Virginia’s hunt country and has been around horses since birth.

He’s a member of the U.S. polo team, which regularly tours England and Scotland. Salahi also travels the local polo circuit with his vineyard team, playing frequently on a field at a nearby winery. He says the sport, one of the oldest in the world and rooted in royalty, is becoming more affordable and more accessible throughout the state — and not just among the horsey set. “You don’t have to be involved in horses to understand the game,” says Angie Abbasi, a longtime polo enthusiast. Like soccer, polo is quickly creating a whole new set of fans. “After people watch it, they get caught up,” she says. “They pick players and follow teams.”

What snares them is the sheer excitement and majesty of a match. In about the time they’d spend watching a movie, polo fans see eight thoroughbreds gallop at lightning speed over an area equal to 10 football fields as agile riders pivot and turn, using bamboo and hardwood mallets to try and smack a little white ball through a goal post.

But the action on the field is only a fraction of the lure. Food and fellowship abound, with each tailgate trying to top the next. And at halftime, there’s the traditional divot-stomping, when spectators roam the playing field to not only meet and greet, but also pound the mounds of earth (divots) torn up by the horses’ hooves.

Some polo events, like Goochland County’s Cadillac Commonwealth Cup, feature such classy add-ons as a horse-drawn carriage parade, wine-tastings and dog agility trials. The match itself pits homegrown players against a team of Brits.

There’s little dispute among polo aficionados that the Commonwealth Cup, now in its 18th year, is the most highly attended polo event in the country. “We attract more people than the U.S. [Polo] Open,” says Abbasi, who chairs the Commonwealth Cup and remembers the first, lean years when only friends and family turned out. Attendance has grown more than tenfold with between 4,000 and 5,000 spectators expected for this year’s match, to be held Sept. 15, according to event coordinator Donna Goff.

Corporations, too, are cashing in on polo’s popularity. Many of the more celebrated matches are fundraisers for health-care or social-welfare groups. By being a sponsor, businesses can do a good deed, get premiere publicity and entertain clients and guests.

Many new polo fans don’t just want to watch, though; they want to play. For $75 and an hour of their time, Juan Salinas-Bentley can get them on a horse and teach basic hitting techniques and riding skills. Salinas-Bentley is the manager of polo at Great Meadow, a 175-acre outdoors center in The Plains in Fauquier County. “This is really the heart of amateur polo in Virginia,” he says. Great Meadow polo school classes run at capacity, with about 20 students, ranging in age from 8 to 60.

Many are first exposed during the twilight polo matches held at Great Meadow each Friday from June through Sept. 13. Families come with picnic suppers and the atmosphere is “inviting, not off-putting,” says Great Meadow Executive Director Leslie VanSant. Great Meadow features arena polo, played on a smaller outdoor field or indoors, with three players per team instead of four. The University of Virginia men’s and women’s polo teams, both of which have been national collegiate champions, play arena-style on Friday nights at the Virginia Polo Club in Charlottesville.

With Virginia’s volume and variety of polo events, says Salinas-Bentley, “Polo is here and it’s something that’s for everybody.”

Return to Virginia Business - September 2002