is divided into six 7 minute periods or chukkers. Since

a horse in fast polo can cover two and one-half to

three miles per period, he'll be too tired to play a

second one right away. After resting for two or three

periods, some horses can return to the game. Still, in

championship polo, a player will come to the field with

at least six horses. The mounts are horses, mostly

thoroughbreds, not ponies. The object of the game is to

score as many goals as possible. There are four players

on a team and each assumes a specific position either

offensive or defensive. However, given the enormous

size of the playing fields, the momentum of the

galloping horses and the ball's unexpected changes of

direction, the game is very fluid, and the positions

continuously change. There are few set plays in polo,

and good anticipation is almost a sixth sense. With

thousand pound animals running at speed there is a

pre-eminent necessity for a right of way rule. The

central concept in the rules of polo is the line of the

ball, a right-of-way established by the path of the

traveling ball. Like the rules of the road, there are

do's and don'ts governing access to this right-of-way

and crossing it. Within these limitations, a player can

hook an opponent's mallet, push him off the line, bump

him with his horse or steal the ball from him.

Penalties are awarded as free hits. The more severe,

the shorter the distance to the goal. The closer hits

are almost certain goals. After every goal is scored,

the teams change sides in order to compensate for field

and wind conditions. A typical score would be 10-7.

Polo games are played on the flat or the handicap.

Every registered player is awarded a skill rating from

C (-2, the lowest) to 10 (the highest). When a match is

played on the handicap basis, the sum total rating of

the players on the team is subtracted from that of the

opposition. Any difference is then awarded to the lower

rated side in goals on the scoreboard.

Possibly the oldest team sport, polo's genesis is lost

to the eye of history. An Asiatic game, polo was first

played on a barren campground by nomadic warriors over two

thousand years ago Valuable for training Cavalry, the game

was played from Constantinople to Japan by the Middle Ages.

Known in the East as the Game of Kings, Tamer lane's polo

grounds can still be seen in Samarkand. British tea planters

in India witnessed the game in the early 1800's but it was

the British Cavalry drew up the earliest rules and by the

1869's the game was well established in England. James

Gordon Bennett, a noted American publisher, balloonist, and

adventurer, was captivated by the sport and brought it to

New York in 1876 where it caught on immediately. Within ten

years, there were major clubs all over the east, including

Newport and Long Island. Over the next 50 years, polo

achieved extraordinary popularity in the United States. By

the 1930's polo was in the midst of a Golden Age it was an

Olympic sport and crowds in excess of 30,000 regularly