The Attributes of a Good Polo Pony



Speed, intelligence and agility by themselves, do not make a good polo pony. He must be clever. He must be able to dodge and swerve while going full speed, and to wheel and turn on the proverbial dime. Besides this, he must be able to follow the ball, and instinctively put his rider in a good position to hit it. He must be completely steady and unaffected by the waving mallets and yelling crowds. In addition, and no less important, he must have much courage, and not flinch from contact, sometimes violent, with another mount.







Tuesday, October 9, 2012

I'm Back !!!

Wow, has it really been 5 months since I last journaled? So much has happened around here that it would take me 5 months to catch-up! Needlesss to say, horses have been coming and going. The mare I got in January had a problem with rearing. It was associated with being herd bound, but it was even happening in her stall if she couldn't see the other horses. Fortunately her previous owners took her back. They had told me I could sell her or give her away, but there was no way I would give her to someone and not tell the interested person about the rearing. Would you knowingly take a horse that rears? I think not !!Mark arrived back from SC with 5 horses. He had not made any summer arrangements for himself or his horses so they were all living here for a couple of weeks. This brought my "herd" up to 7. One of his new horses was a starvation case that he rescued-body score of 1. She also had the worse case of rainrot I had seen in over 40 years of dealing with horses. A sweet little 2 year old mare. When Mark left for his new housing and employment location, the mare stayed here with me for some rehabilitation. As I've said before, it never ceases to amaze me that people can have a horse that looks this bad, and not think there is a problem. Here are pictures of her upon arrival, and then 6 weeks later.