Equestrian “
The original plan was for the lagoon to be sited between the pitch and the stick and ball field, but we work closely with the players and they wanted the two fields to be adjacent to each other for convenience
“The club then purchased the neighbouring Noel Farm, which had formerly been used to grow vegetables and, in 2015, a full size pitch was constructed by White Horse Contractors,” he adds.
Noel Farm also now boasts an
all-weather exercise track surrounding the irrigation lake for the pitches, plus a stabling barn, due for replacement with a more aesthetically appealing stable block in 2018. “The original plan was for the lagoon to be sited between the pitch and the stick and ball field, but we work closely with the players and they wanted the two fields to be adjacent to each other for convenience,” explains Luc De Ville. He reckons that a new polo
pitch takes two years to become fully established and that, for this season, the Noel Farm pitch should be spot-on. “It’s taken a lot of work -
we’ve applied large amounts of sand, hollow cored, Shockwaved and Vertidrained. The pitch had 500 tonnes of sand spread on it in spring 2017 alone.” Built in a period when wet summers regularly disrupted polo and made maintenance tricky, Noel Farm’s pitch has drains at 4m intervals and 1m sand bands to ensure that it stays dry. Water that goes into the drains is channelled back into the irrigation pond for recycling. Irrigation on all three pitches is applied with rain guns, preferred by polo players who suggest that the water jets on boom systems can create grooves which affect ball travel. The three Italian-made outfits
on each pitch can take 10 hours to put 10ml on, but applications are made at night, with the irrigation pattern computer controlled.
In 2018, the club will seek Hurlingham Polo Association approval for the Noel Farm pitch
106 I PC JUNE/JULY 2017
so that it can be used for matches as well as training. Shorts is quoting for the contract to drain the Gadbridge pitch and use the topsoil removed to develop and landscape a bank of old contaminated land next to the new pitch, making it a feature. “It’s another specialist service
that we can offer - in the construction phase at Noel Farm, we completed excavations to eradicate knotweed and grassed over the contaminated area as an interim measure,” comments James Winfield. Whilst Gadbridge and Noel
Farms are mainly used for training and as an overflow for matches diverted from other local clubs due to poor weather etc, Billingbear Park hosts a programme of high goal fixtures throughout the season, including charity matches where royalty are among the players. In a sumptuous 150 acre
parkland setting, Billingbear has a full size pitch and two practice pitches, plus purpose built stabling and staff accommodation, complete with gym and physio room for the players. There’s also a luxurious clubhouse - rebuilt from the ground up - offering comforts more akin to a five-star hotel, including a huge plasma TV and a snooker room. Pitch maintenance machinery is housed at Billingbear and shuttled to the other sites as necessary, with modern workshops and storage facilities. Shorts draws on its agricultural strengths to harvest haylage to feed the polo ponies from eighty acres of surrounding fields, where some are also pastured outside the season. Shorts installed a new stick and ball field at Billingbear ten years ago under the previous ownership, plus a second four years ago, draining the land before using cut and fill to level, stone burying and reseeding
At Billingbear, refurbished Lloyds gangs continues to give good service
Harrowing all-weather horsewalks and practice arena is part of the regular workload for the King Power grounds team
The irrigation lagoon at Billingbear Park sits well in the parkland setting but can provide the capacity to apply 10ml in 10 hours
Working together - King Power Polo groundsmen Damien and Kamil Chec, Shorts Agricultural Services James Winfield and Peter Robey
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