Polo, the importance of horses
The characteristics of thoroughbreds
“Horse is a gift of God to men” an Arabic saying cites. Held in these words, a great truth: this noble animal – today mainly a “playmate” – has, in fact, strongly influenced the history of mankind and, by modifying the way of communicating, moving and fighting, it may have transformed its course too.
Originally from the American continent, where the first exemplar appeared about 150 million years ago, it was first a source of meat and milk and then, from around 3000 B.C. a domestic animal, as reported by archaeological discoveries dating back to the Botai Culture of Northern Kazakhstan.
Later on it started spreading on the European continent too and, thanks to explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortes, Coronado, De Soto, throughout the rest of the world, including the Americas where, in the meanwhile, it had faced extinction. With the arrival of modern times, the horse stopped being a main working instrument, rather becoming man’s companion in a great number of sports activities, including Polo too.
At the beginning, this game, in which perfect harmony between man and animal is fundamental, small size horses were used, resistant and strongly built. These were the peculiarities that the English – the first to get in touch with the oriental game – tried to replicate, by selecting the most suitable exemplars among the breeds available on their lands. Today, height limits for the four-legged athletes are not significant anymore. The limit was originally imposed, as a game regulation, until 1920, and a great number of them is now formed by thoroughbreds often imported from South America and carefully selected on the base of characteristics such as docility, endurance, speed and sensitivity.
Despite polo horses enjoy quite a number of restful months throughout the year, and despite their activity consists of a seven-minute participation for each match, their athletic effort is quite demanding. During these seven minutes, they’re in fact requested to enact rapid accelerations, sudden stops, and narrow curves. To face such requests, a part from a good mental balance, which allows horses to keep calm while playing and not to excessively suffer from stress due to continuous moving, they necessitate, as every athlete does, an adequate physical preparation.
Polo is a dangerous sport, both for man and animal. Its very risky nature makes it necessary to take precautions such as bands on the four limbs of the animals that, besides protecting them from a potential impact with balls and sticks and supporting ligaments, they became a characteristic aesthetic detail of this discipline whose nature generates a proper symbiosis between man and animal. Throughout the entire match the two become one single thing, concretizing the deep relationship that is best defined by a great lover of horses, Winston Churchill: “there is something in the exteriority of a horse that grasps the deepest interiority of a man”, renowned politician, journalist and speaker. This is how it’s been throughout the course of centuries and this is how it’ll continue being.
Allegra Nasi
Tags: horses, Polo, South America, thoroughbreds
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