A brand new chukker for polo

The sport of maharajas is poised to move towards the mass market - or is it?.

Let's keep the hats, the pearl necklaces and the fashion parades that are associated with polo aside for a moment and talk about the sport for a change.

The game which back in the old days was associated with the maharajas is still played by the rich and the famous, and people from the defence services. It is a royal sport that holds little interest for the common man.

But is it actually a viable career option "" can someone actually make a career out of it? What better time, as the polo season gets under way, to catch a few players and canvass their views on how the game is developing and what one needs to do to make a career in the game.

Sameer Suhag, one of the leading polo players in the country, feels that the game is associated with the rich and mighty. "You can't take away that factor, as that has been the case for over hundreds of years now."

For Suhag, coming from an army background, he was always drawn to polo and wanted to play the sport even as a child.

He admits, though, that things have changed for the better since he started playing the game in the early 1990s. "Then the game was less corporatised and played on a much smaller scale."

Suhag is spot-on as far as that is concerned. Over the last few years, the money has been pouring in. Corporates find it convenient as one of the most premium lifestyle events in India, and use it to showcase their brands. Financially, the sport has never had it this good. Polo attracts the moolah in sizeable quantities.

Yet star player Lokendra Singh Rathore believes that it will never be a mass sport. "At the end of the day it still remains an expensive sport to play and unless you find backers it's tough."

But Rathore feels that since this is polo's moment in the sun, people should be encouraged to take up the sport. For that to happen, a lot of clubs will have to be set up nationally, and for current players, "there should be a lot of international exposure".

At the end of the day, polo is an expensive sport. People call golf an elitist sport, but it has broken out of that mould to some extent.

As Adhiraj Singh puts it, "That was due to a combination of factors." Players did well, money came in, and the game is played by or being taught to children from a young age.

Will we see that happening with polo? "It's hard to imagine that way," says Singh. One good pony alone can cost close to a lakh, so one can gauge the cost of a good horse.

The money earned by professional polo players has improved in the last few years as corporate interest has swelled, but, says Sameer Suhag, "It's a good career option but not a long one, say, like golf."

Popularity and fame elude even the best current polo players. "We don't expect to become household names, to be honest," says Rathore, yet "it gives a sense of pride when we represent the country at international events."

Even Suhag feels that most of the players aren't in the game for money or fame but for the love of it (which is true for most sports, he adds). "But there is that monetary incentive attached to all sports, which in polo is not that high."

Is there a sense among players that sometimes the focus is not on the sport but more on the spectators? "It doesn't bother us players," says Suhag, "as we are professionals doing our jobs on the field."

It does appear that polo will take a lot of time to trot from Page 3 onto the sports pages!