POLO
JONATHAN SMITH, Head Groundsman at Cowdray Park Polo Club, adopts a scientific approach to ...
Pitch PerfectPolo
COWDRAY Park Polo Club, in Midhurst, West Sussex, counts itself among the biggest in Europe and lays claim to the title of ‘The home of British polo’. Founded almost 50 years ago, this famous club attracts both international royalty and the world’s top players to its verdant hectares, including of course the world number one, Argentinian Adolfo Cambiaso - who earlier this year proclaimed the grounds to be ‘perfect’ - the best that he had played on all year.
Understandably, the highest calibre polo players are not prepared to compromise their ponies - worth up to £50,000 each - by riding them on poorly maintained turf. The task of keeping up the extremely high standards necessary to safeguard their prized possessions
36
rests with grounds manager Jonathan Smith, his team of five groundsmen and a retinue of up to 30 staff employed to ‘tread-in’ after each game.
An HNC in turf science and 14 years’
experience maintaining golf courses helps Jonathan to adopt a scientific approach to keeping Cowdray’s polo grounds in prime condition, so keeping the horses - and the players - happy. “Polo turf is most similar to golf tee turf,” he explains. “The rules of grass are the same; only the traffic is different.”
The polo grounds at Cowdray certainly see a lot of traffic: a total of 25 tournaments are held each year, amounting to some 450 games. Each game sees eight ponies tearing up and down the pitch at around 25 miles an hour, usually for over an hour. At half time, the commentator asks spectators to step on to the pitch and perform the time-honoured process of ‘treading-in’. But does it have any effect? Jonathan laughs: “Treading-in is part of the show. On a busy day, with a few hundred people at a game, it does have some effect, and of course on Gold Cup day (the final of the Veuve Cliquot Gold Cup Tournament) there are around 20,000 spectators,” quipping that it would have a greater effect if they trod-in after
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68