On Friday we got to go to a Polo event in Adelaide. Neither
of us had ever seen Polo before, and we were thrilled to finally get the
chance. Mark and Belinda stayed at home, so we didn’t have to worry about
feeding the horses and we got to take Mark’s car because the red UTE won’t last
the distance to Adelaide. Mark said to tell the people at the entrance that we
work for Andrew Grey (another Polo guy) to get in for free, but since we
dressed up for the occasion, that wasn’t going to happen; grooms don’t usually
wear little dresses and heels at work. We parked at the back of what had been
the show-jumping arena for the Three-Day.Event and then just climbed over a
fence. This was my second time trespassing in Australia and I’m getting better at
it. We snuck through the back entrance of a bar and then just blended in with
the crowd. After saying hi to Andrew, we found seats in the grand stand because
we wanted to get out of the sun; it was quite hot and humid in the city
compared to what it had been like in the hills that day.
It turned out not to be a proper Polo match; the
chukkas were much shorter and the field was smaller than in proper Polo. But it
was cool nonetheless. The first match we saw was a bit slow and had us
wondering whether we had a wrong impression of what Polo is like, but it turned
out that in the first match, it was mostly amateurs playing. Because the second
match was Polo the way Polo is supposed to be. Fast, lots of goals and tricks,
and the horses were much fitter as well. I have to admit that I still don’t
really get the rules or why something is a foul and something else is not. But
Belinda said that even after ten years, she still doesn’t quite get it, so it
must be rather complicated and/or subjective. At times, I even found it hard to
find the referee in the huddle of ponies and players, and it didn’t help that
he wearing similar colors to one of the teams. They have two additional
referees or whatever it is that they’re called, who stand by the goal posts and
whose only job is to check whether the ball passed between the posts or not, because
it is really hard to see, especially with the Polo balls being that
not-striking, off-white color that they are. Why not have yellow or red balls
that are much easier to spot?!
Almost as interesting as watching the game was watching
the people. It’s similar o how it is at the races, maybe a bit more chic and
definitely more drunk. At one point, they had a race on the Polo field. First
the ladies in their short dresses and sans heels, then the men. It was very
amusing and I got it all on video, including all the folks that fell over and
rolled around on the grass like fish on dry land.
We didn’t stick around too long after the last
match, because there wasn’t much going on other than people standing around,
drinking and talking. On the way back, we stopped at McDonald’s and the shopping
center, to get Christmas presents for Morgan and Imogen. I love how people
stare and whisper when you go to places like that in a cocktail dress and high
heels ;)
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