I have a super busy August planned, with Ascot ladies, The Yorkshire Open Championships and the Toulston Family Tree..Its making me feel tired just thinking about having three really big competitions all in one month – but it’s very exciting!
Preparations start for Ascot Ladies, I’ve spent the last few weeks searching for horses with Roxy & Chalita injured, I have kindly been loaned a great horse by my friend Gianluca, called Brazillia, so I’ve been getting to know her, she’s a horse that’s screaming for some love – so I make it my mission to befriend her and hope she will look after me on that pitch at Ascot at the weekend!
We head off in the lorry with 7 ponies for myself and my team mates, I make the decision to hire a pony from a friend at Ascot, I had a few options of horses, but none I felt were quite right for me, the team or the Ascot Ladies Nationals... so I head to Ascot with only two horses in hope of finding a great one down south!
We head down on the Friday morning and make good time.. Only getting stuck for 30 minutes on the M25! We had a lovely yard at Ascot Park and the ponies settle in straight away! In the evening we head off for a practise to meet our fourth player, who plays off 1 goal so we were able to increase the level of polo we played, Freddie Rosso Banks, kindly agreed to join the Tottie team!
At the polo yard I was greeted with the choice of two ponies! One chestnut mare & one dark chestnut mare (sadly with no names!), I got straight on the chestnut pony and headed down to the pitch to meet with Freddie, We had two practise chukkas so it was a chance for me to test the ponies, the chestnut pony was super easy to handle, hit off and was very safe, at this time of my polo season, the priority for me is to play safe, when you are on a horse, that you can trust 100% you can do almost anything, when you are one what challenges you it can sometimes back fire. The dark chestnut pony, had a little more sparkle and was again easy to manoeuvre, I made the choice to go for the dark chestnut pony, I name ‘Nico pony’ as I felt it has a little more energy and pace compared to the chestnut pony – ekk I hardly slept that night with excitement and hoping I had made the right choices in horse power!
Saturday morning comes, so we are up early preparing for the big game, we have no idea of the competition, and I’m sure they feel the same about us, so once that ball gets thrown in, we have no option to suss out their play or their horses, we just have to play polo the way we know.
The game starts and we leap into a quick lead, the game was very open and incredibly fast, strong plays from their side put our defence under pressure, but strong plays from our attack with myself and Claudia combining well gives us a good early lead and gave us time to relax and enjoy the game, this season I’ve tended to play more at the back, but for Ascot I switch to the number two position making my job to score the goals, we kept a good lead and going into the last chukka we were three goals up, when the final whistle blows it was amazing, to win our first round by such a good lead was just the best feeling in the world and all three of my ponies rose to the challenge and made me incredibly proud!
The final was at 4.30pm which gave us great time to prepare the ponies we were playing a similar handicapped team based at Ascot Park, we got off to an amazing first chukka with myself scoring the first goal and spot scoring a penalty! The second chukka we continued the lead, but giving away a silly foul in front of our goal, cost us a goal, in the third chukka the other team came back fighting, with an unlucky miss off the back line by team Tottie allowing their team to put the ball through our goal, gave them another goal and the gap was closing, by the fourth chukka there was only half a goal in it, and in the last few minutes of the game the other team scored, disappointing doesn’t come close, we tried so hard. Freddie was pleased with the work rate of our team, we actually physically could not have tried any harder, we marked, defended, attacked, but sadly made a few mistakes which cost us the game.
Freddie said after the weekend I had played like a minus 1 and three quarters for half of the game and that the other half, like a zero goal (I’m not too sure I’m there yet!)but this year I felt very worthy of my handicap, not having my string of horses and to play like I did I was very proud of myself, I look forward to next year having Chalita and Roxy back as part of my team and I look forward to Team Tottie venturing back down next year.
Still on a high from Ascot I start to prepare for the Yorkshire Open championships. It’s been a busy week for me; I make the decision to rest Chalita & Roxy and call it an end on their season and bring them home for much needed TLC. I’ve been very lucky these past few months to have been leant some fantastic horses so my polo can continue, It’s really improved my riding, getting on a playing unknown horses in high level tournaments has made me feel like a polo player in my own right, rather than relying on my fantastic horses to do the work (which they do!) Brazillia has been going really well for me, she tries her heart out on the pitch, horses like her I know are hard to find, so I’m very pleased to announce I made the decision to buy her. Super exciting and Tottie have already sent me a few new Masta rugs for her – so she’s already part of the team! I am so lucky to have found such a fun pony to finish my polo season off and look forward to having some great fun with her in the coming weeks!
Our Yorkshire Open team was formed, I decide to play with my friend Riki as we combine well together and know each other’s play well, I know she gives 100% on the pitch and I like that. We call in a professional player Matias who is the polo manager of Leadenham Polo club to play with us so we could get entered in a higher level of the tournament, we decide to give our friend Angus the remaining spot, at just 15 he is one of the most promising players I’ve seen, we all played together at the Castle Howard Cup in June – with our staggering 10-2 win so we thought it would be much fun to play together at a much higher level, I’ve learnt in polo, you can have the best four players but if they don’t work as a team, they will never win, choosing teams is difficult because the balance of skill and team sportsmanship is so important. We know by entering this team we will face serious competition being a -3 team in a -1 competition – but we want to all play together and have some fun and hopefully play above our handicaps to win!
Saturdays game starts fast and furious and my job was to mark the professional, by keeping him out of the plays, marking hard and sticking with him at all times. Tom the 2 goal professional is very well mounted and can captain a side well, we get off to an early lead and then the other team fight back incredibly hard to equalise, the play continues this way up until the third chukka where we have some really strong plays for the third chukka I borrow a horse from Matias to save Brazilla and only use her for one chukka as I’m still working on her fitness – I ask the groom what the ponies name is as I’m getting on the pony who informs me she’s called Diablo – which means Devil in Argentine, trying to put that aside whilst smiling with hope she won’t drop me on the pitch we have a great chukka and open up the lead by two goals one of which I scored which was I think the best goal I have ever scored sliced in the air at a tight angle to score on the devil pony - yeeha!! going into the final chukka it was important we kept our plays strong and defended well, I always save Noemi until the last chukka so I was confident going in on her, we knew we had to score another two more goals to secure a place in the final, as there were 6 teams fighting it out and only two places for the final, we kicked on, marked hard and had some very skilful plays as a team, and scored two further goals in the last three minutes of the chukka! The win felt brilliant! All the horses were great and we certainly played above our handicaps to come out four goals on top!
The final we drew an incredibly strong family team, the brother sister team combine well and have very strong horse power, both playing off 0 goals with their other two team mates off -1 we were the under handicapped team and start by half a goal advantage, we get off into a quick lead scoring in the first four minutes of the chukka, but within a minute the other team had scored, the play continued like this until the third chukka where again we broke away scoring two goals to open up the lead, we each individually played our part and kept up the lead opening it up to four goals in the last chukka! The game was fast furious and very open. I’m so happy to get Tottie’s name engraved on the Yorkshire Open Trophy! Well done to the team and of course the super fast and clever ponies!
I’m having an absolute great polo season so far and I am very proud to be representing Tottie on and off the field.
Here’s to the Family tree at Toulston Polo Club next weekend – what I won last year – so hoping to get my name back on the trophy!
Toulston polo club is one of the oldest polo club, started in 1913, The Family Tree Trophy was started many years ago and has some very big and famous names in the polo circuit on the trophy so it’s a great one to get your name on. The idea is you enter with a family member or close friend as a pair and get drawn out of a hat with another family/pair – its great fun!
My friend Howard and I have played for the last two years together and I was delighted when he asked me again this year, Howard plays off 0 goals and is one of the most reliable players I know, he’s taught me a lot of over the past few years so I love the opportunity to play with him, we get drawn with Ellie a young girl, who is a very strong -2 and Jenny a lady with much experience on the polo field and someone I have played with a few years ago so I’m happy with the team and know we are going to have fun together.
We draw three very strong teams in our division; there were 8 teams in total. The first game we got off to a great start, wining by three goals in just six minutes, the second game we drew were also very tough, with good friends in the opposing team, again we got off to a great start winning by three goals, the third and fourth chukkas teams were the strongest of the competition, we start with half a goal in the third chukka, but clever quick breaking plays give us a good lead, following by another goal to secure the win, the fourth and the decider to go into the final, we knew we had to win this as the other team had also won all their games, we went out strong scoring in the first two minutes of the game, again following with a another goal, in the four chukkas we never let a goal in but scored an impressive 9 goals in four chukkas.
The final was a tough game, of only six minutes, so we knew we had to make the first minute count, we won the draw so we chose to go the better way in the line out, giving us a great start and run to goal, the opposing player fouls in front of the goal, allowing us a 30 yard penalty n which we score, its fast furious playing a 1 goal player and an incredibly strong -1 player, but clever team work, backing up scoring a few more goals and having fun won us the game! What an achievement to play 5 chukkas and win them all was amazing! The ponies were brilliant and the weather was amazing.
White Rose Ladies is next on the calendar so ill keep you updated!
Bye for now
Anna x