#7 - Polo Tournament Patron
Polo Tournament Patron
Price: $1,720,000
Stuff rich people love includes sports that the rest of the world does not pay attention to including aerobatics, shooting and polo. Most attractive to the wealthy is that the horse is central to the match and money can buy happiness and success. Imagine spending $1,000 on a basketball that guarantees you will jump higher and score more often. Polo has been a global pastime for more than a century with the Calcutta Polo Club breaking ground in 1862. Fortunately, finding common ground with the wealthy is as easy as a basic understanding of one of the fastest and surprisingly physical sports in the world.
To speak the language of polo you need to understand the basics of Polo. Each team on the field consists of 4 players and their horses. The object is to strike the ball through the posts at the opponent’s end line, the most goals wins. One match is typically 8 chukkas, or periods, which last 7 minutes each. What truly distinguishes this as stuff that rich people love…polo players typically switch horses after each chukka – that’s 8 horses per rider per game!
Furthermore, just as jockeys saddle up the thoroughbreds, the wealthy do not ride their ponies in matches. A patron (pronounced pah-trone) will hire a team of pros to compete in high goal tournaments at a cost of as much as $150,000 per pro for a weekend and provide the horses at a cost of more than $35,000 per horse. Is there a better way to spend $1.7M over a weekend at the club?
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Stuff Rich People Love 
Stay polishing, do every thing focused.
wow. My intent was to point out that polo is a great sport (and fun!) for more than pompous jackasses, one of whom I now know lives in the same town as my DC area house (that’s one neighbor I could ). Congratulations, you are contributing to the defamation of a sport already in decline. Assuming you aren’t lying, that is. No one as unpleasant as you plays at my club.
Actual, actual polo player you are not a jerk. You are a jack*ss. I am an actual polo player and everything I said is true. Yes high goal polo can be very expensive. but if you want to do it as your hobby fit in among work, family and travel, as most people do, it is exactly as I said. USPA did a survey a few years ago where they found that almost 80% of players in the US play low-goal polo, mostly at their own clubs, with a handicap of 2 or lower. This is the group which keeps the sport alive, not uniformed pretentious idiots who need to feel rich on anonymous posts. Don’t get me wrong – I love high goal polo. I’ve been to Cawdry Park and the Argentine Open as part of my larger travels, and I even watched it late at night on ESPN. This is seperate from my love of playing, however.
A low-goal horse can be as low as 5K USD. This is comparable to other disciplines, as are the higher prices. Last year at Aiken the highest price horse was only 27,000 USD, not 40K. My actual costs are: Polo club dues (3K per year), board, farrier, etc (350 USD per month per horse), tournament fees where applicable (approximately 500). Most practices and matches are four chukkers – only at the occasional benefit do we play 6. We never play 8. This means that members only need two horses. This winter I also donated a bit extra to the club to help with the higher snow management costs and again to help the families of some staff from Chile following the earthquake in that country. Except for the club dues and tournament fees, these are all costs associated with any discipline of riding, and the total costs are a little better than when I hunted.
I posted about the real costs to accurately represent polo and help the sport (the number of players is declining in all countries, in part because of perceptions that players are like you). You posted inaccurate (uninformed?) costs to make yourself feel rich and important in an anonymous post on a website which claims to be dedicated to mocking people such as yourself. I wouldn’t want to play polo if I thought you’d be there either, and even if I believed your 200K entry costs nonsense.
I’m turning off the “alert when comments are made on this comment” option, so I will never know what you have to say for yourself, if anything. I suspect you will not I felt for the sake of polo that I should respond, however, in case anyone else saw your rude and inaccurate post and thought that it reflected either the type of of person who plays or what it takes to become a player. That done, I don’t want to be connected to anyone lacking manners and knowledge, no matter how lightly.
I love polo because it is an exciting sport, involves horses, and I appreciate the friendly atmosphere. It is the last point, and which makes me confident that you do not play at my club and your ignorance of polo which makes me glad that you do not.
Are you myopic or just a social climber? do you calculate the costs of moving your horses around during the season….from buenos aires to palm beach? from palm beach to the hamptons. Its people like you with handicaps 4 and under that play polo the same way you see over weight 60 year-old women and 12 year old girls playing tennis at the club…with the same skill, knowledge, and tenacity. I live in McLean va, I have played polo all my life and so has my family in Argentina and NYC. Some in my family are professional, some play just on occasion, but we all know the real costs and do not have to pretend. Its lovely how inexpensive the sport has gotten in Argentina, even at high level. But if you see the post we were discussing high scoring, tournament polo. Maybe one day your skill or your pedigree will qualify you to watch or play in one…but i highly doutb it
The maximum amount of chukkers played in 6. This is becuase any more requires too many horses (low goal polo you can ride a horse for two chukkers, assuming they have a beak in teh middle, and for high goal polo you must change at least every chukker to avoid exausting the ever-sprinting horses) and exausting for the players.
If you aren’t a patron, ti costs about what regular horseback riding does – not inexpensive, but within the reach of “normal” people, white and otherwise.
Not trying to be a jerk but you are wrong on several counts, watching Polo on TV is one thing, pretending you really know the sport is something else…. First off you are wrong on the chukkers…. there CAN be 8 chukkers, the most TYPICAL is 6, but there can be as few as 4. Its up to the specific league or tournament. Secondly, NO it doesn’t cost as much as regular horseback riding, the proper training and maturity of a polo pony takes 6-7 years. You can “regular horse back ride any horse” you can’t play polo with any old pony… You also need 4-8 horses…@ 40k each you need 140-320 thousand dollars in horses( if you need less than four ponies you are playing like a grandmother, and scoring very little). Yes, in Argentina polo is affordable to learn than in the U.S., but its similar to golf….just because you can buy a set of adams golf clubs from ebay and make a fool out of yourself at the public course driving range, doesn’t really constitute playing real golf…just like hoping on a horse and hitting the ball with the mallet doesnt mean you are playing polo.
Unless you’re Spanish, it’s pronounced “pey-truhn“.
So do you have any connection with Stuff White People Like or are you just emulating the style on your own. Either way, pretty solid stuff here. Made me laugh a few times.
No connection to Stuff White People Like but I was definitely inspired by it! I’m glad you are enjoying my posts…feedback is always appreciated!