Alejandro Ceballos Jesus Marquez: What is polo and what are its origins?


Polo is a team sport in which two sets with four riders each, mounted on horseback, try to bring a small ball of wood or plastic towards the opponent's goal, consisting of two wicker poles via a taco or mace . The goal is to score the most goals.
The field is about seven times larger than a normal football field. However, the size of a polo field can vary, as often happens.

Each party has four periods of play, known as chukkers, which last for seven and a half minutes. It is only the playing time that counts: the clock stops whenever there is a lack. Although players are expected to develop during the match without substitutes, the polo ponies can not be used on consecutive chukka. Since the game can have a really strong impact in the horse’s condition, this rule was implemented when they realized that the horses suffered injuries too often when the game lasted for long. 


HORSES
Typically, each player uses a different horse in each chukka. And although the horses traditionally called ponies, now both terms are used equally: if a horse seems to be tired before the end of a chukka, the player can and should change horses.
With no timeouts, the player that wants to make the change must wait for a pause in the game, approaching the shore, change horse and return to the field before the game resumes in the given time. Many polo ponies are thoroughbreds or cross thoroughbreds. Horses play a maximum of two non-consecutive chukkers per game.


ORIGIN
It is believed that this sport originated in Persia around the sixth century BC the cavalry units trained good riders practicing this activity. As most ancient sports begin, it was first thought to be a way to train soldiers.

Particularly in Persia, now Iran obtained as a national sport, being precisely where it began to be associated with nobility and royalty, after being practiced by the upper class, the military class and, above all, by the royal family. The game was formalized and extended west to Constantinople, and east to Tibet, China and Japan, and south to Pakistan and India.

Several centuries later, polo came into contact with Westerners, being Manipur, a state in northeastern India, the epicenter of the brush, at which British residents there, product of agribusiness tea, learned the local custom to play polo with horses and elephants, founding the Silchar Polo Club in 1859.

That's when, according to historical records, a representative of the British government which was established in the town, wrote a review of the sport, which contributed to its spread in England, so that the pole finally landed in the British Isles, a first meeting being held in Hounslow Heath, in 1869.

Those English fans, then disseminated polo to the rest of the western world, coming to Malta in 1868, Ireland in 1870, to Argentina in 1872, to Australia in 1874 and the United States in 1876.




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