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Polo - by Sallie Anne Lent

No. Polo is not for Toffs.

No. You don’t have to drink champagne, speak Spanish and wear expensive boots.

No. You don’t have to own a string of polo ponies and spend your nights in fancy nightclubs in London, Paris and St Moritz.

All you’ve got to do is go to the Sussex Polo Club in Rowfant, West Sussex, just 15 minutes from Gatwick Airport, they’ll do the rest.

If you’re not a very good rider, if you can’t ride or even if you’ve never sat on a horse before , don’t worry. They’ll teach you everything.

“People think Polo is up-market. That it’s for professional riders.  That it’s only for the few. That it’s expensive. It’s not. It’s for everybody,” says 20-year-old Charlotte Barrett McGowan, the Polo Manager. “We have people come here who have never sat on a horse before. Within two-months, they’re playing polo.”

And it doesn’t matter how old you are either.

“We have children, eight- and nine-year-olds, playing Polo. We have 70-year-olds playing Polo. It doesn’t make any difference.”

Charlotte should know. She started riding on holidays in Wales when she was three-years-old. Back home in Richmond on Thames, she was soon spending her spare time helping out at Ham Polo Club, which was nearby. From then on, it’s been Polo all the way. She even speaks Sastellano, the Argentine-Spanish dialect spoken by most of the top world-class Argentinian players.

So how much does it cost to play Polo?

“Boots,” says Charlotte. “You don’t have to spend £2,000 buying a pair of fancy, leather boots from Faggliano. You can buy a perfectly sensible pair for £150.

“A pair of white jeans, £150.

“Kneepads, £100.

“A Polo hat, £150.

“A Polo stick and a whip. £120 - £130.

“One Franklin glove for your stick hand, £25.

“Four Polo ponies, anything from £3,000 to £50,000. But, of course, you get what you pay for. Three-thousand-pound will buy you a 15-year-old Thoroughbred. 15 – 16 hh. With bad legs. He’ll probably only be able to play two chukkas in a match. Fifty-thousand-pounds will buy you a six-year-old Thoroughbred. Very well schooled. From a very good bloodline. A mouth like butter. Able to play the full four chukkas.

“Tack. About £600.”

 Which is a total of anything between £4,000 and £100,000.

Go to Sussex Polo Club, however, and all you need is jeans and a pair of trainers.