PROFILE


HM The Queen joins the Army and Navy teams, which included her husband, HRH Prince Philip and Lord Louis Mountbatten, in Malta 1954.


accepted – and later improved upon. We now play seven-minute chukkas. Perhaps his greatest contribution was


his personal re-writing of the most basic rule of polo and of polo safety, Field Rule 16, which described the Right of Way on the field, along with the many complicated rules defining the variations of “Crossing”. Full of ambiguities, Field Rule 16 was the source of endless umpiring mistakes and debates throughout the 1920s. Every rule book offered conflicting definitions. So Mountbatten set out to draft, then re-draft from first principles, a basic law “so simple”, as he wrote in September 1938 to Lt Col Williams of the Indian Polo Association, “that someone who had never ridden or played polo before could understand it”.


20


MOUNTBATTEN, WHO HAD FOLLOWED THE DETERIORATING SITUATION IN EUROPE THROUGH HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH FOREIGN SECRETARY, ANTHONY EDEN, HAD TO RESIGN HIS POLO RESPONSIBILITIES TO TAKE UP THE COMMAND OF HMS KELLY


The deceptively unfussy result is worth


quoting in full: “At each moment of the game there shall exist a Right of Way, which shall be considered to extend ahead of the player entitled to it, and in the direction in which he is riding. This Right of Way is not to be confused with the line of the ball and does not depend on who last hit it. No player may cross or enter the Right of Way, except at such a distance that not the


slightest risk of collision is involved.” If you consult Field Rule 16 today, as set


out in the current HPA rules, you will find that, eight decades later, Mountbatten’s definition – drafted, and re-drafted in September 1938 as dawn was breaking over Park Lane – survives word for word. September 1938 was also the date of


momentous developments in the wider world, Mountbatten, who had followed the


GUARDS POLO CLUB OFFICIAL YEARBOOK 2019


© Malta Polo Club


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