I’ve been preparing for the last three weeks for Touslton and Leadenham, working on the pony’s fitness for our first competitive game of the season! We’ve been doing faster practises so that they calm straight down once the fast plays start also helps me to hit the ball at speed!!
After a busy weekend with the Presidents Cup last weekend – its full steam ahead now for the polo season! This weekend I am preparing for the Toulston Spring Cup. I’m yet to know who my team will be this weekend so I’m excited to know who I’ll be playing with and against! This weekend will be a really great run out for the ponies before the big one next weekend at Leadenham!
This week also been really exciting as I’ve been designing the Tottie team shirts and the designs are looking amazing! I can’t wait for them to arrive!
The ponies work load has been quite relaxed this week because I’ve been really busy with work also the ground is still really hard because of the lack of rain we’ve been having so I still haven’t done too much schooling work yet, Noemi & Roxy have really started to calm down this past week and are not trying to buckaroo me off as much which is nice, Chalita is still a little crazy at times, but that’s they way I like her she’s so much fun at the moment!
The weekend soon comes around which is always nice and the ponies and I are off in the lorry heading to Toulston Polo Club, 6 teams entered in to the Spring cup, so the organisers decide to do American chukkas where we play two teams for two chukkas each to decide the finalists from the two rounds, we won one game and lost one – Just! Meaning because we had won the first game by many goals we are in the final tomorrow! I take the ponies’ home with me that evening and head out with my friend Kate for a Chinese to say thank you as she’s been helping me all day so we had a lovely relaxing night and the ponies chilled out and relaxed in the field.
We had perfect polo weather on Saturday and Sunday was miserable we haven’t had rain in over 12 weeks and today it decided to rain for what seemed like 12 weeks! Which is typical because my friend Sam came to watch me, it was Sam’s first experience at a polo match so wasn’t a great first experience! However we were all super warm and dry with our Tottie clothing on and the ponies in their Masta rugs didn’t seem to mind being tied to the lorry in torrential rain! A few players decided to not play because they were concerned about the ground being too slippery, luckily my team mates were all still ready to play so I decided to stud up the ponies and play, the ground actually played really well it was slippery in places but the key is to stop in a straight line and play safe, Chalita was desperate for a good run out so it was important I played. It’s also really hard to play in the rain because I wear safety goggles to protect my eyes from oncoming balls the rain was covering the lenses and I could hardly see which was challenging at times, the quicker I wiped it off the quicker it came down! We had a really tough but fun final and just lost out in the last chukka, placing us second, once again I was pleased with the way the ponies went and the fact we had a safe match, another superb weekend and start to the season – bring on next weekend!
This week now will be solid preparation for the start of season tournament at Leadenham I’ll be pushing the pony’s fitness and trying to increase their stamina as this weekend will be a really hard competition where I will test the ponies full fitness and also mine!! Ekk so I plan to stay away from Chinese take-aways and eat healthy! Here’s hoping!
Saturday soon comes around and the lorry is packed raring to go! I take my three ponies and my team mates pony so we set off at 8.00 am to Lincolnshire. We draw probably the hardest team on the Saturday & after battling it out over the four chukkas we lose by only half a goal! The match was fast, infact one of the fastest games I have played, the ponies absolutely loved it! They were however extremely hungry & thirsty but they loved gong at super fast speeds! The opposition had a professional player who was extremely skilful and very well mounted and captained his team well, you never mind losing to a good team and I learnt a lot from the game – ready to put into action tomorrow...
It was a long day and night where we partied into the early hours at an Argentinean bbq called as asado, my game wasn’t till 4pm but I was up for 8 feeding the ponies with my friend Sarah. I had one of the best games on the Sunday, we worked incredibly well as a team and had so much fun – that’s what polo’s all about I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in a game usually I’m very seriously and think ‘game on’ until the whistle goes but it was so much fun and when there wasn’t a cup involved we took advantage of this!! We won 7-3 so it was a very good result, the team was a much higher handicapped team than mine but we played together and had great fun with a super result!
I’d just got untacked and was loading up the lorry ready for home at 6pm, when there was a 2 goal game being played, one of the players got a ball in his eye and had to be rushed to hospital, I was drafted in to play his horses in the game, not only was it a big step up from what I have been playing – it was horses which I not only hadn’t played before but I didn’t know of them! I was soon showed my two ponies what I would be mounted on – it was like looking up at shire horses! Not only were the tall but they were big too, I put three twists in the man’s stirrups and managed to get a passerby to give me a leg up and away - I was off, I asked the young girls whose father had been injured was there anything I should know about the horses, she said they liked to ride off other horses! I sat tight, did my job and played an important part of the team. I missed a few balls but I only had the mallets from my ponies which are small in comparison and I needed an extra mallet with at least 2 more inches! Because of this I sat tight and decided to ride off and be a defence player. We won 7-4 it was a great final, I also received a prize which I gave to the little girl to give to her father, hoping he makes a speedy recovery – what an experience!
I’ve had a really exciting week this week, when Equestrian Lifestyle Magazine came to do a feature on me! Check out Chalita the cover girl with her ears forward for once looking super pretty! Really loved doing the article and it was a great opportunity to wear all my Tottie collection – I’m seriously addicted now to the Melissa hoody I have one in every colour and the Diana jeans what are like skinny jeans I wear them even when I’m not riding!!
Next on the calendar is the Summit Cup which is a great fun tournament so I’m really looking forward to that! Bye for now Anna x