I have always loved and owned horses, so I had assumed my 3 children would share my love for this incredible animal. There were always horses in their young lives. My 2 oldest children did ride, took lessons, attended horse camp, and even did some showing. When they were old enough to say "NO MORE" and conveniently decided to participate in time consuming school sports and activities, I thought my "horse loving children" days were over. My youngest son who was 6 years younger than his siblings, and also never showed much interest in horses, other than riding them while pretending to be a knight in armor. When he was in high school we attended an open house at the University of CT. There was a polo match, which we thought would be fun to watch. Actually it was the horse loving mother that wanted to watch the match. My son watched the game for about 15 minutes and announced that he wanted to play polo. I said "But you can't ride, never mind ride like a polo player. What about joining your high school's cross-country team?" Well he was determined to play polo, so started taking riding lessons and we even signed him up for polo lessons at UCONN. He learned to ride, and play polo well enough to be asked to join the UCONN high school polo team. He played on that team for 2 years, and when it was time to apply to college, he was only interested in colleges that had polo teams. He was accepted to UCONN, and played on their team for 4 years, even going to the national collegiate polo game in KY. Once the polo "bug" bit him there was no turning back. Now a 30 year old adult, after many years of struggling to be successful in polo, he owns and operates one of the largest equestrian facilities in MA. I like to brag and say that my son not only plays polo, but teaches polo, learned to shoe horses,, has a polo club, a huge equestrian facility, and best of all, I finally have a child that loves horses.
