Ex polo ponies

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Monty

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Nov 16, 2001
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I know absolutely nothing about polo, nor the horses that play it, except that they're always called ponies, regardless of size, and Chev tells me they often have their manes hogged....I tend to be suspicious when I see hogged manes, except in show cobs....but that's just mean.

Tell me about the typical temperament. Would I be completely daft to consider an ex polo pony?? I've seen a lovely pic of one. He has such a kind face. Quite a way away, so someone is going to get a PM very soon!!:rolleyes: :p But please tell me what you think I should know about them...given that I'm considering re-schooling for dressage!:eek: Forget it?? Go on spill the beans. He's 10 yo btw.We're only at preliminary enquiries stage.
 
check his schooling - i doubt you' be able to do the retraining yourself. the ones i have ridden (a fair few were at the college i did my exams at) and they were super speedy, trained to stop, go and turn on a sixpence, and had 3 speeds - stop, gallop and warp speed. i went out the side door on more occasions than i care to admit to because i asked for a turn thinking i means a gentle curve and horse interpreted the request as a 180 spin.

they're used to strong bits and are often very anxious about contact - for polo they want to stop on a sixpence with no arguing, so are normally in gags or pelhams. reaching into a contact is an alien concept and takes a lot of retraining.

that said, i've not ridden one who has already had that retraining done (ours would be not long out of training and the exam students were the guinea pigs) - they are smart and responsive, so i;d imagine a retrained one could be a lovely ride. i would gues their nature would mean they'd be pretty shapr though, if they'd done well at polo.
 
OK, I'll get that checked then. He's been a hack for the last 18 months, with a very novicey family of mum and two little girls. They've all ridden him, and he stopped being a polo pony because he was crap at it apparently....so maybe that's a good thing.:confused:

Thanks for that.
 
I used to ride at a riding school where the owner played polo. We used to get some of the ones that didn't work out put in the school to re-educate them. (we were clients so I guess we paid for the privilege as being guinea pigs) The half dozen I met were very willing and amenable, none were lazy and only one that I would have described as really hot.

However they were used to working in a completely different way and needed reschooling from scratch. Hacking was no problem as they had been hacked out regularly as part of their previous lifestyle but you had be very patient in the school as they were very green.
At 10 that horse would have to unlearn a whole way of working. Not impossible but something to bear in mind.

Another friend went the other way and started playing polo on a horse that had previously been used for something else. When we went to see him after some months, that horse had completely changed shape, his whole topline had changed\gone!
 
they're often very fizzy, and if the pony is from Argentina, it will probably have been broken in in a pretty rough way, so echo Mehitabel's warning about their attitude to contact.
Saying that, a friend has a lovely ex-polo pony who can turn his hoof to anything and is very calm.
Their paces may suit you though- they're not typically big striding, although they can be pretty fast:D
 
that's a good point - they do tend to be very smooth and not big-moving. if he is ridden by a novice family and hacked out, then it sounds like he is significantly further along in his re-education than the ones i knew!

good luck! they do tend to think and be level-headed - they don't panic in an exciting situation because they are used ot it. that's a big bonus.
 
Everything Mehitabel and Svenja said - I used to be a p/t polo groom.

Plus
generally traffic proof
good travellers
well bred
light and responsive to ride (See also Negative)
brave confident horses

Negative
Sharp
neck rein - may not always respond to conventional aids
higher head carriage due to gadgets etc
legs generally covered in lumps and bumps
turn on a sixpence
very fast
very very fast

Don't touch any Argentinian ones, I used to work with three Argentianian-bred ponies - they were terrified of people, poor things.
 
The smooth ride would be pretty typical of most TBs & TB types

Not really had anything to do with polo ponies but from someone has retrained horses from various disciplines I would say it is easier to train one from the start than to retrain one. Meaning really that a willing to learn 4 or 5 year old might be easier to train than a 10 year old that has already learnt a trade or that has had previously bad training.

The fact that this horse has been hacked out doesn't really mean that his retraining has even started. He might be fine hacking but he might stress when you ask him to actually work, on the other hand he could pick things up very easily but I'm afraid it isn't something you will find out until you are regularly putting pressure on him to go out of his comfort zone. One of the things you need to consider about retraining a horse (especially from things like polo & racing) is that in times of their uncertainty they will pretty much always revert back to their early training & if that is stopping dead or turning on a sixpence, you may run into troubles.
 
Just thinking..
We used to hack the ponies out as part of their fittening routine, would usually ride one and lead two.

So 'hacking out' is possibly fairly normal for this horse too, and if he has current novice owners I guess the demands on him have been minimal.

I do like polo ponies, they are generally nice tempered and fun, but I am not sure I would like to own one (and I was offered several....)
 
Mehitabel said:
they're used to strong bits and are often very anxious about contact - for polo they want to stop on a sixpence with no arguing, so are normally in gags or pelhams. reaching into a contact is an alien concept and takes a lot of retraining.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I used to exercise a polo pony and it did wonders for my seat and balance as no way could I ride with any contact.
 
Think you're all probbaly right. Probably best left. On the plus side, I'll show you the photo anyway so you know the stamp I like. I like him very much. I also like light to middle weight cobs.

Here we go:
 

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He is nice, I'd be with Mehit on this one - I would phone, bearing what has been said in mind.

I have also ridden some very fast polo ponies...but on a plus they were used for stunt riding and so were very sensible, just speedy and not great on contact.
 
Quite a few of us here went to learn polo for the first time last summer, we are having another go this year.

I have to say that the ponies were first class and I would certainly consider having one.

They are so responsive and well behaved, they all looked really highly strung but were quite the opposite.

Was great :D
 
i exercise polo ponies (arabs) and my boy was trained as one but was too slow and laid back (thank god) . Ditto what everyone had said about contact- touch the mouth and you're backing up like a lunatic, touch the neck with the reins and you're pulling a 360 faster than a spinning top. The only other thing is that they do have alot of strain on their joints as they work hard during the season so if its been doing polo then get it checked out thoroughly- loads of splints and bumps from sticks and balls and the odd serious injury from falls.

Generally they are wonderful to ride, amenable, responsive, not spooky, courageous and patient (they spend most of the match standing around waiting for their chukka) and if they haven't been worked too hard then are brilliant to own. :D
 
You say he was bad at it - if he was bad at it, he probably didn't have warp speed, and probably couldn't turn on a sixpence well enough.

He looks nice, I'd call.
 
We watch a lot of polo, and also see the polo ponies being exercised near where I live.
That pic is exactly the size and sort of horse I'd love.
Unfortunately there is no such things as a polo pony - except a new breed registered in the Argentine I think. And the genuine article is disappearing; more and more players are using TBs to get the speed.

Dressage in walk and trot (which I think is what you want) is about as far from what polo ponies do that I can imagine. To deprive a polo pony of canter doesnt seem kind. It is what he is trained to do every time he goes out, whether for a game or exercise and probably what he enjoys.

But if it is a TB pony that turned out not to like polo, and hadnt really played polo much at all, that would be different, wouldnt it?
 
I never deprive any horse I've had, of canter. EVER. Polo pony or geriatric plod. They get regular schooling without me on board, from my instructor where they get cantered, and jumped if appropriate, I even let a trusted person compete them...again if that's appropriate. So that's not a worry.

I'm definitely finding out that one man's whatsit is another man's poison (or something like that:D !)

Sorry, Skib, that sounded a bot snotty, didn't it?? Sorry...didn't mean to. Is just fact.
 
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Monty, I know I've mentioned it before, but if only I could send you that Akhal Teke I went to see last summer... 10 years old, 15.2hh, prix St Geroges trained, yet also used by their local RDA group because he was so kind and gentle.... a wonderful horse. And the smoothest paces...
but, he is in Kaliningrad... close enough if you were in Germany, but in the UK... oh well!:p

The polo pony looks nice, worth a call. He has more substance and bone to him than a lot of the Argentinian ones I've seen- I used to keep my pony at a yard with polo ponies outside Paris and worked as a polo groom at weekends, so have seen/ridden a few.
 
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