Polo Ponies Deaths

A criminal investigation is underway in Florida to determine who is responsible for the deaths of the Venezuelan polo team's ponies. The U. S. Polo Association, polo's governing body, had already opened their own investigation by Monday morning.

While there was speculation in the non-horse world as to what happened, according to my email inbox, horse people had absolutely no doubt there was foul play involved. The only questions were how and why.

The idea that so many equines, which were in top condition and cared for by skilled horse people, could die so quickly and at the same time, by accident or misadventure was unbelievable; at least to those of us who know horses.

The immediate supposition is that someone didn't want the favored Venezuelan team to win the U. S. Open polo tournament. To horse people the idea that anyone would kill the team's horses is enough to make the idea of hanging the perpetrators of this crime a viable option. A few more radical horse people offer more extreme suggestions as to what should be done to the person or persons who committed this crime.

Unlike racing, which is carefully regulated and policed, polo has not needed such checks and balances. Polo is a team sport with four players on horseback. The object of the game is to get the ball past the other team's goal line. It is played at high speed and with a lot skirmishing involved. The ball is a hard wooden ball that is moved by hitting it with a mallet. Controlling pony, mallet and ball calls for a high degree of skill.

The game has seven chukkas, which is what the divisions of play are called. Because of the intensity of play polo requires a "string" of polo ponies for each player; ideally one pony per chukka with a spare or two.

Typically polo isn't played for money because there isn't much in the way of monetary prizes. A big cup (or small one in lesser games) is pretty much all the reward a team earns for winning. Private betting as to which team will win certainly takes place, but there is no large scaled betting system for polo. If it proves that monetary gain was the reason for the deaths of all these horses, then it is likely there will be changes in the future to a system more like that of sanctioned horse racing.

My sources are ABC news, NBC news, AP, USA Today and U. S. Polo Association webpage.