A centre near Delhi is taking polo to a new level of professionalism

The La Pegasus Polo Center is the first to collaborate with the polo association of Argentina, the world's No 1 ranked polo-playing nation

It is afternoon. The sun is burning down on our heads. It is certainly not the best time to visit a polo ground. But with the polo season having started in Jaipur, where all the action is taking place at the moment, we haven’t missed much by arriving at the polo centre in Gurugram at this time of day.

There is a reason we are at the La Pegasus Polo Center, the sprawling, nearly 300-acre complex set by the Aravalli Range. The largest private polo facility in India, it was acquired by industrialist Sanjay Jindal’s Ess Jay Pegasus Sports Foundation in September. La Pegasus Polo is set to introduce a number of firsts for Indian polo. It is the first to collaborate with the Asociación Argentina de Polo (AAP), the polo association of Argentina, which has for decades been the world’s No 1 ranked polo-playing nation. It is set to be the first AAP-accredited centre outside of Argentina, which will have Argentine coaches training Indian players. And, it is on the cusp of hosting a series that will see the highest level of polo being played in India in recent times.

In December-January, the India-Argentina polo series at the centre will witness 22-goal handicap international matches for the first time in India. To put it in context, the country’s official Indian Open Polo Championship has a limit of 16 goals. Before that, on December 7, there will be a special match between the British and Indian armies to commemorate the 100th year of the end of World War I. And in February 2019, the centre will host its first proper polo season, which will last three weeks and have a prize money of ~5 million — the highest in the country. 

“The polo centre was founded in December 2015 as Gurgaon Polo and Equestrian Club,” says Tarun Sirohi, CEO, La Pegasus Polo Center. Sirohi, who retired as colonel from 61 Cavalry, the only non-ceremonial horse-mounted regiment in the world, is one of the three co-founders of the centre that Jindal recently took over. The third is actor Randeep Hooda.

The narrow lanes of Saketpur, one of the many villages in Haryana’s brick-cement-and-glass city that is Gurugram, suddenly open up as we turn towards the polo centre. Inside, an 18-hole golf course runs beyond a club house for golfers. Further ahead, past the undulating greens, is a relatively new structure that is for the time being serving as the polo club house. It overlooks an international-size polo ground. This club house, Jindal says over the phone from Mumbai, will be eventually torn down to make way for a two-storey complex with hotel-like suites, lounge areas, gym, swimming pool, viewing gallery, tuck shop and an audio-visual polo training centre. The plan is to turn the space into a polo and lifestyle hospitality destination.

Towards one side of the club house, the ground is being readied for a floodlit space for night riding and arena polo. Not far from here is another arena where children and beginners learn to ride. And close to that is the dressage arena. Dressage, for the uninitiated, is an equestrian sport where the horse and rider perform a series of predetermined moves in complete harmony, as though effortlessly. It’s one of the most graceful sports to watch. Then there is the showjumping course.

Riding and polo classes here work at two levels — on membership and on pay-and-use basis. Besides the training arenas, inside is an 8-km riding track that runs through the complex. It allows the rider to take the horse on a gallop. A 12-foot boundary wall ensures that rider and horse don’t wander off the complex. Similar “hack” rides are also possible up and down the Aravalli hills and through the water bodies — either accompanied by a trainer or solo, depending on the competence of the rider.

At the stables, it is rest time for the horses. The centre currently has two blocks of 20 stables each. The plan is to build four blocks of 20 stables each and another 150 for visiting horses. At of now, 20-25 of the horses are in Jaipur, racing. “The polo season is like a travelling circus,” says Sirohi. It will travel from one polo centre to the other — Jaipur, Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and so on. “In polo, the horse’s contribution is 80 per cent. This is the only sport where the sporting equipment has a mind of its own,” Sirohi adds.

They source the polo horses from the races courses. A horse enters racing at the age of around two and retires from it by the time it is six or seven. Polo needs horses aged five and above. With a lifespan of 25 to 30 years, the animal gets fruitfully re-employed.

It is on a wooden horse that novices are taught how to use the polo mallet (Photos: Sanjay K Sharma)

Sirohi explains that as the members become regulars, some of them want their own horses. The centre has a solution for that. If the member has just a horse or two, the centre takes over its responsibility. But if he has more than two or three, the owner is advised to set up a “camp”. Not far from the stable is one such private camp of six horses. In such a case, the centre provides the land, but the horses’ diet and upkeep, including their attendants, is the owner’s responsibility.

Back at the polo club house, a wooden horse stands by the main polo ground. A Jack Russell Terrier and its puppy tear around the complex tirelessly. “The Jack Russell is said to be a polo dog,” says Sirohi, but he is not sure why. Perhaps that it so because like the horse, this dog breed is stubborn, fearless, energetic, athletic and intelligent.

The wooden horse is also there for a reason. It is on such a horse that novices are taught how to use the polo mallet. “Or else, they might end up hitting the horse’s leg, and injure it,” explains Sirohi. The centre will get four such wooden horses of different sizes to train beginners.

All of this is a must if it is to make the cut for AAP accreditation. “They [AAP] have given us a list of criteria to meet — an international-size ground, at least 24 horses, 12 players, training aides in terms of wooden horses, and so on,” says Sirohi.

While polo is one of the world’s oldest known team sports, modern polo originated in Manipur from where the British took it all over the world. After Independence, the princely states and the Indian Army kept it alive. With the abolition of the privy purse, it fell to the army to keep the sport going. Most major cantonments, in fact, have a polo centre. Today, it is the modern maharajas — from the corporate world — who have developed a passion for it.

The Argentine chapter is only another step ahead in India’s polo story.