international liaison
in his very own words
Polo fi rst captivated Bryan Morrison when he up your 52-inch cane and the only obstacle in bundle on the ground. Getting up on one knee,
attended a game at Ham Polo Club. One of the its way is your gloved hand. Knuckles are torn I looked up at the colossus towering above me,
greatest, if not the greatest, love of his life he but still the mallet head travels upwards in its like the statue of the Duke of Wellington.
wrote about his feelings for the game in a book 360- degree arc. The forearm is the next to feel
about his life that he was editing at the time of the weight of the bamboo, and if you are very “ What are you doing on the fl oor, boy?
his accident. unlucky this whole process of swinging mallet We’re not picking up daisies are we? Get up
that has not lasted more than one and a half immediately.”
It seemed somehow fi tting that these words seconds will end up grinding itself into your face
should form the content of our Club’s tribute to or helmet With that he wheeled round and continued the
Bryan Morrison who died last year. ride. I grabbed at the reins being held out to me
At the same time ball having been missed and with great diffi culty managed once again
Those of us that knew Bryan well have no doubt it is imperative to throw your body weight to put my foot in the stirrup. Once ensconced in
that he would have preferred some of the last backwards onto your haunches of your mount, the saddle, I spent the rest of the ride skulking
words written about him to be his own!. whilst applying slight pressure from the hands, along, the last man in the pack.
plus a deft touch with the right or left boot
Reading his words and suddenly he is sitting and within six yards a good polo pony will have The next fi ve years of my polo career were spent
next to you, puffi ng away on a No.2 Monte stopped, pirouetted and thrown itself once more at the charming Richmond Club. Indeed it was
Cristo, a glass of Mateus Rose in hand, into the affray. Only then, with the pain and here in my fi rst offi cial game that I completed
recounting the tale when... sheer power, will one understand what it is like to a feat that I have never been able to surpass,
be at the epicentre of the game of polo. one which I am sure is totally unique. In my fi rst
“I consider myself lucky having always been in game, from the very fi rst throw-in, I took the
a privileged position in my working career that Another moment to savour is when having ball from position 1 straight up the pitch and
all of my passions were my work as well as fun. played a chukka or two on a particular horse, scored within about fi fteen seconds of the game
Ever since I was 17 years old I have never had suddenly comes the realisation that for seven starting. In the twenty years since that moment,
the dread of waking up on a Monday morning and a half minutes you have become entwined, having achieved one of the best amateur
to go and face the boss and suffer yet another bonded together as one, never aware of the handicaps in the country of 3 goals, I’ve never
week of misery and drudgery. Instead I had the separation between man and beast. Truly the got to repeating this performance Needless to
pleasures of music and design of travelling and centaur in Greek Mythology! say it was very much a fl ash in the pan, as the
people. As great and important as these things rest of the game was to show my true ability,
are to me, they were eclipsed by an even greater And so on a balmy day in July 1972 amongst which was very little.
passion. The passion of Polo. A game of such guests at Ham Polo Club, my heart burst,
intensity, skill, bravery and presence of mind overwhelmed, I had found a passion that My captivation with the game of polo has often
that everything else pales into insignifi cance. completed the circle of my life. Within a day of gotten me into trouble, but it has also been my
witnessing my fi rst game, I was ensconced with calling card as a result of which I have made
Polo’s uniqueness is a singular problem that one of the great characters of the game and many friends. As Sir Winston Churchill would say
separates it from virtually every other sport and the Club; Billy Walsh. When riding out with this ‘A polo handicap is a passport to the world’.”
that is the need to contend with another mind. master, it soon became obvious that the only
That being the mind of the horse. Every other time he spoke, or recognised you, was if you had On the fi rst of May 1986, the fi rst chukkas were
ball sport is played with the feet fi rmly the misfortune to be thrown or indeed had fallen played at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo
(or nearly always) on the ground. Imagine off your mount. Club. Bryan Morrison seemingly achieved the
hurtling at nearly 30 mph towards a small impossible by opening the fi rst new High Goal
white ball some three inches in circumference, I remember the fi rst time this happened to polo club in 50 years. The Annabel’s of Polo.
whilst your opposite number on the opposing me. We were perhaps ten minutes into a ride
team has the absolute right to ride into you at in Richmond Park and I was just beginning to Sadly in July 2006 Bryan Morrison’s polo pony
not more than 45 degrees, sometimes hitting feel that on my third attempt, I was getting the fell to the ground during a game at his club,
you with such force and ferocity that both hang of riding American style. Suddenly there leaving him in a coma from which he never
horse and rider can be knocked left or right was a slight movement to my right, possibly recovered. t
w
through the air three or four feet! At the same a small deer or rabbit. This imperceptible
e
time as all this is happening, your eyes are movement was never the less picked up by When Bryan fi rst started to play polo at Ham
n
t
glued to a ball that sits some fi ve feet below the big brown eyes and ears of my horse. Polo Club, Billy Walsh would declare the season
y
-
you. All of this whilst positioned up and out of This sent him into an immediate change of leg, closed as the fi rst autumn leaves fell covering
t
h
the saddle, arm pulled back like a bowman of followed by a tow-foot yaw to the left. I was the pitch. This represented the darkest day of
r
e
England, ready to execute the perfect arc at a left momentarily hanging in space, where a the year for Bryan, who would regularly arrive
e
ball that you are travelling towards faster than fraction of a second earlier my saddle had half an hour before Billy was due at the club in
the cats eyes on an open road. At the moment been. I hit the ground hard, but any pain order to sweep away the leaves and secure just
of impact another opponent on your nearside was immediately over-ridden by the total one more weekend of Polo.
shoved his stick towards the impending point embarrassment I now felt as I was sprawled on
of impact of your mallet and ball. As the sticks the ground. As word reached Billy Walsh up the Bryan passed away early on a bright blue sunny
meet, the intensity and sound is like the antlers line (there were sometimes thirty or forty horses autumn morning, surrounded by his family.
locking of a rutting deer. Sometimes the impact on these rides), he reined in his horse, turned That day was Saturday the 27th September,
of the stick will send his mallet head at speed, and slowly meandered back to where I lay in a the last weekend of the 2008 Polo Season.
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