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SUPA POLO SCHOOLS
Learn to Play Polo. It's much easier than you think
New Zealand enjoys a ranking among the top five polo nations in the world in terms of ability. However, up until the last few years, the number of players participating has not increased greatly, due to the commonly held misconception that polo was an expensive and elitist sport that was a bit "too hard" to play unless you were a farmer.
Polo is now available to you.
New Zealand Polo Association has spent 10 years changing the structure of the game to make the sport of polo available to people from many walks of life where those people are athletic and want to play the world's fastest and most exciting team sport.
Now all you need to start is a hard hat and a pair of suitable riding shoes or jodpur boots for your own safety. We supply the facilities, the horses and all other equipment plus the coaching.
Whilst polo is a recognized sport which is rapidly gaining strength amongst a number of the schools throughout the country and collegiate polo is high on NZPA's plans for future growth of the sport, one of the very popular sectors of the game is people of all ages getting lessons leading up to and playing "business house" polo on midweek nights after work or university.
Come on out and have a go!
For more information on how you can inexpensively enter this magnificent sport contact:
Auckland
Waikato
Hawkes Bay
Christchurch
Or phone the closest polo club to your area.
Furthermore, there were virtually no female players in the country until say 10 years ago, Happily women's polo is currently the fastest growing area of the sport, not only in New Zealand, but in most of the major polo playing nations around the world.
The Vision
The objective of the New Zealand Polo Association was to reverse this trend by breaking down the barriers to entry and spreading the word that people from all walks of life are welcome to participate. We have the athletes, we have the horses and we have the infrastructure throughout the country to make this happen. However there was a lot of work to be done.
Over the past ten years a major effort has been made to achieve that objective and encourage more participants from a far wider spread of the population.
This has been carried out in the following manner:
Junior polo has been restructured and is now limited to four chukkas.
Some of the larger clubs (Auckland Polo Club being the pioneer) now offer facilities to keep the horses in full livery and to hire horses out by the chukka. This allows a person with two ponies and a horse float to play or one with no horses at all to hire two from the club and play.
The advent of professionalism and New Zealand's vast ongoing supply of Thoroughbred horses has created an industry making polo ponies for export and has thus created a number of jobs and future careers for young polo players. At the end of every NZ season many of those players move to England and Australia to work those countries' polo seasons giving them all year round employment.
Polo - The Great Character Builder
Due to the speed at which the game is played (up to 50kph) and the fact that it is a team sport, unlike most equestrian sports, both physical fitness and mental alertness are most important prerequisites of polo players. The game is a great teacher of self-discipline and temperament control and a builder of team spirit, cooperation and trust between players, all necessary attributes in day to day living and working.
Between the two world wars, Sir Winston Chuchill encouraged polo amongst airmen because he recognised that the skills of tactical awareness, co-ordination and rapid manoeuvre required for polo were similar to those necessary for aerial combat. Sir Winston was also famous for his saying "A Polo Handicap is a Passport to the World" a profound saying, the reality to which many New Zealand polo players would attest.
SUPA POLO
SUPA Polo is an English initiative which from a nil base 15 years ago now combined with Pony Club Polo has 3000 Schools and University players and holds a series of 5 serious polo tournaments during the season culminating in the National Championships in August. It also continues through the Winter months playing indoor arena polo.
Towards the end of the 2001 polo season, two pupils from one of Auckland's schools were given an opportunity to become polo players, one that they would not otherwise have had due to their inner city domicile. One of those players was so successful that within four years he was in the winning Northern Polo Association team in the annual Northern vs Central Districts challenge in the 2005/06 season. He was then selected to play in the NZ Colts under 19 team to play in England in July 2006. This challenge, which takes place between NZ and England every 18 months, alternating between the countries, is played for a trophy known as the "Gibley Cup" He then went on to play in the winning Savile Cup team at the NZPA championships in March 2007.
From those small beginnings the SUPA (Schools and Universities Polo Academy) Polo School was formed. SUPA has 10 of its own polo ponies and coaches between 10 and 20 players at midweek coaching clinics after school. Due to the success of this initiative other polo clubs throughout the country with dedicated polo players at the helm have followed suit and now carry out the same exercise throughout the country. The latest one being Hastings with a new one being developed in the Waikato. In Christchurch collegiate polo has taken off with around 14 school teams participating in their two major tournaments last season.
New Zealand Polo Association is dedicated to building school and university polo in New Zealand and emulating England's amazing success story. Progress is gaining momentum and there are currently around 70 young people from say 10 - 19 years old now playing the sport. Competition between schools is catching on and growing . The Vision is Becoming a Reality.
New Zealand Polo Association Inc. welcomes the opportunity to introduce students from New Zealand's schools to the NZPA SUPA Polo programme and encourages them to participate in the magnificent sport of Polo.
Gordon M. Gibson
Hannah Marshall
SUPA Polo School
Auckland Polo Club
West Road, Clevedon
polomanager@aucklandpolo.co.nz
Ph: 021 2600602
Stephen Kay
President
Northern Polo Assn
Ph: 0272 919 079
Richard Kettle
Birchleigh Supa Polo
email richard@ahdlt.co.nz
mobile 021 757 334
Roddy Wood
President
South Island Polo Assn Inc
Ph: 0272 265 031
E: roddywood@hotmail.com
President
NZ Polo Association Inc.
Ph: 09 2928 468
Mob: 021 922 296