THE PAST COMES BACK TO HAPPILY HAUNT US AND WHAT BECAME OF MINI TRAPPE by Melanie Trappe
Mini was a professional player based at Ham Polo Club from 2001-2005 where he played off a 3 goal handicap. In 2005, after many years of keeping her waiting, he finally asked Melanie to marry him and they moved back home to Tanzania, Africa.
For the first few years after moving, he was involved in polo holidays and horse safaris. This also included making ponies and selling all over East Africa as well as playing chukkas at the local polo club and tournaments all over the region. In 2008, his first daughter, Sienna was born. Over the next few years he moved into the family business as well as built his home for his growing family. A second daughter, Michaela, was born in 2010 and Mini started working on a family owned conservancy a few hours from Arusha. Times were exciting on the farm with encounters with elephant poachers as well as animal capturers, but Mini saw it as an adventure and continued on. After a year and a half in the bush, his family decided that he may be treading on a few toes and moved him back home with his family where Mel could keep a watchful eye over him.
Mini found his calling not long after that and became the sales and marketing manager for a championship golf course just down the road. For the first time since returning home, he got himself a great string of ponies, made up from some he bought in South Africa as well as some made by him off the track in Kenya. The kite boarding and motor biking went a little by the way side again and polo came to the forefront of his hobbies, with a little bit of golf thrown in.
The close encounters with wounded buffalo on safaris with his friends continued though, much to his wife’s horror!
Mini still tries to recruit as many players to the game as possible and has, over the years, managed to convince a few of his friends to get on a horse after a few drinks in the bar. One of his best friends lost a bet over a bottle of whiskey and chukkas were booked for him the next morning, when he could only count on one hand the number of times he had ever sat on a horse. A year later, they travelled to Johannesburg together and took part in the Land Rover Cup 6 Goal Tournament and won it. Mini’s passion for polo was firmly passed on and he continues to recruit new members to the game. His hope for this year is to get together a full Tanzanian team with a few of the very talented local players to play against a few regional teams to give the sport the exposure it is missing in the country.
Although Mini still works for the golf development company as their Sales manager, 2017 sees him and Mel take over the running and development of the local polo club. This is a huge undertaking with renovations and land clearing starting and hopefully within the next year or two, have the development complete of the clubhouse, fields, other sports facilities, spa and accommodation. This, they are hoping, will bring it in line with some of the other polo destinations in Africa, but with the incredible views of Mt Kilimanjaro from the fields and clubhouse.
Hopefully 2017 will see another visit from the Trappe family to the UK and more importantly to Ham Polo Club.
HPC • THE LONDON POLO CLUB 35
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