Polo

General Rules

Game Duration

The time periods in which the whole game is divided are known as chukkas (or chukkers). There are six chukkas in most matches and each one lasts for seven and a half minutes of nonstop play. There may be at most 8 chukkas in a game with no extra time. In all games, there is a half-time interval of 5 minutes and a 3 minutes interval between each chukker.

 

Winning Of Game

The team scoring most of the goals including the ones awarded for handicap and by penalty, wins the game.

 

Handicaps

Polo has a handicap system in which two teams of differing abilities have an equal chance of winning the game. The handicap is based on a standard six-chukka match and runs on a scale of -2 to +10 goals with -2 being the lowest and +10 being the top end of the scale. Before the start of the game, the handicap of each player in the team is added to give the overall team handicap. The difference in the total between the two teams is given as a goal advantage to the team with the lower handicap.

 

Game Rules

Following are the rules of the game:-

 

• At the start of the game, both the teams line up in the middle of the ground on its own side of the halfway line and behind the ‘T’.
• After every goal, except for a goal which is awarded as a penalty, the ends should be changed.
• If no goals are scored by the half time, then also the ends are changed.
• After each goal, the game is restarted from the middle of the ground as at the time of start.

 

Line Of The Ball

The most important principle in polo is the “line of the ball.” This imaginary line represents the path of the ball each time it is hit by a player, and it establishes the right of way for all the players on the field. When a player has the line of the ball, he/she has the right of way- which usually belongs to the player who last struck the ball. If another player crosses the line of the ball in front of the player with the right of way, the umpire will call a foul and award a penalty.  

 

Fouls And Penalties

If one member of a team commits a foul, one of the umpires may call for a free hit or a penalty hit. Minor fouls are often penalized by a free hit from the 40-yard line or the 60-yard line, depending on the level of the offence. If the foul prevents a player from scoring a goal, the umpire will call for a penalty hit from the 30- yard line. Penalties are usually taken by the most experienced player at number 3, who gallops up to the ball on the line and drives it between the goal posts. The opposing team can’t interfere with play during a penalty hit.

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Officials

Umpires

The game is controlled by two umpires who are mounted to enable them to keep close to play. All decisions taken by the umpires are considered as final.

 

Referee

The referee remains off the field of play in a central position and his/her decision is final in the event of any disagreement between the umpires.

 

Goal Judges

Goal judges stand behind each goal area and give approval to the goals or other point of the games near the goal on umpire’s request only.

 

Timekeeper

The beginning and end of each period is signaled by a timekeeper who is responsible for timekeeping.

 

Scorer

Responsible for keeping a record of the scores.

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Events

Snow Polo

Snow polo is played on a snow polo field which is around 170 yards x 80 yards.

 

Grass Polo

It is the outdoor sport played on a 300 x 160 yards flat, grass field.

 

Arena Polo

It is played on an enclosed all-weather surface or in the indoor arena which is 300 x 150 feet field enclosed by at least 4 feet high walls.

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Techniques

Hooking Mallets

It is a defensive technique which is used to stop the opposing player when he/she is about to hit the ball. Hooking above the shoulder level or in front of the horse’s legs is a foul that is penalized by a free hit.

 

Riding Off

This technique is executed by pushing against the opponent team’s player to get him/her out of the line of the ball must be done from an angle of less than 45 degrees.

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Participants

Two teams of four players each compete against each other. The players are referred by their playing positions that are Number one, Number two, Number three and Number four. The players have certain responsibilities based on their playing position.

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Playing Area

The playing field of polo (outdoor polo) is 300 x 160 yards (maximum width 200 yards) which is equivalent to nine American football fields while for arena polo it is 96 x 46 meters. The goal posts at least 3 meters high are set 8 yards apart and are centered at each end of the field. The surface of the outdoor polo field requires constant ground maintenance to keep it in a good playing condition.

General History

A sport of Central Asian inception, polo was believed to be first played in Persia (Iran) from the sixth century BC to the first century AD. Polo was at initial a preparation/training regime for army force units, for the most part, the king's watchman or other first-class troops. To the aggressive tribesmen, who played it with the odds of 100 a side, it was like a fight.

 

In time polo turned into a Persian national game played widely by the royality. Ladies just as men played the diversion, as demonstrated by references to the queen and her women drawing in King Khosrow II Parvīz and his subjects in the sixth century AD to play the game.

 

From Persia, the sport spread to Arabia, at that point to Tibet (the English word polo is the Balti word signifying "ball"), to China, and Japan. In China, the passing of a favoured relative during a diversion incited Emperor A-pao-chi to arrange the decapitation of every single living player who was in that game.

 

Polo was brought into India by the Muslim invaders in the thirteenth century; however, despite the fact that the game had been depicted in Sir Anthony Sherley's Travels to Persia (1613), the first Europeans to play the game were British tea farmers in Assam, who shaped the first European polo club in 1859 at Silchar. The Calcutta Polo Club was framed in the mid-1860s. Polo spread quickly after a commander in the tenth Hussars positioned in India saw a match right off the bat in 1866 and promptly shaped a group from among his officers to play the game themselves. Before the year finished, casual matches were held between British army units positioned in India. Polo developed quickly in England, with events at Richmond Park and Hurlingham drawing in a huge number of 10,000 onlookers by 1875. After the military had presented it, the game of polo stayed famous with them yet, in addition, spread to the colleges and was well known with the respectability and sovereignty.

 

In 1876, the sportsman and paper distributor James Gordon Bennett saw his first polo diversion and presented it in the United States. Soon after that casual matches were being played in New York City and by 1877 at Jerome Park circuit in Westchester County, N.Y.

 

Despite the fact that the guidelines of the Hurlingham Club of England (which was established in 1886) were at first utilised in the United States, in 1888 a set of rules for handicapping players was formulated to level tournament play.

 

The Polo Association, later the United States Polo Association, was established in 1890 and helped institutionalise the guidelines. Polo spread all through the nation, despite the fact that the amusement since quite a while ago stayed one for the rich as a result of the cost of procuring and managing a stable of polo horses.

 

International Competition

The primary international game occurred in 1886 when the United States ineffectively tested the English, at that point the undisputed world champions in polo, for the Westchester Cup.

 

After 1909 the style of the game transformed from the moderately slow English type of play portrayed by short, controlled hitting. American polo players utilised a long-hitting, quick moving, wide-open style that reformed the game. The standards of the two nations were in the end absorbed, the United States embracing the English guideline allowing a player to hook an opponent’s stick with his mallet, while the English surrendered their offside principle that prohibited players behind the ball.

 

Polo turned into the Argentine national game, and the total number of teams formed in that country surpassed 60,000. Worldwide matches commercially sponsored (basically at Boca Raton, Fla.) were held during the 1970s, and European titles were first held in 1980.