Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/498400
nnouncer Peter Poor, sitting by a ship's bell sal- vaged from a wreck off the coast of England, swivels his head away from his microphone as a scrum of polo ponies thunders by his stand. On t he f ield, Joha n n Col loredo -Ma nsfeld, wea r i ng a red a nd black Ha r va rd jersey, sw i ng s h is ba mboo ma l let h igh above h is head. The long handle bends like a parenthe- sis as the head swoops down and thwacks the ball, driving it in a graceful arc down the greensward of the Myopia Hunt Club polo ground. Poor bends toward the microphone and, without any emotion, says, "A fine shot." Yankee understatement at its best. The team from Mongolia scrambles to catch up with the strapping Harvard sophomore, tall and lean in the saddle. Along the boards framing the turf of the nation's oldest polo club, heads lift from Champagne f lutes. Myopia polo manager Nick Snow blows his umpire's whist le. T he ba ll sk ir t s w ide of t he eight -ya rd goa l, marked by tall stakes. The seven-minute chuk ker (or per iod) soon ends. It's brea k t ime. The Harvard and Mongolia riders head to the sidelines for fresh mounts, several of them bearing the upside-down "7" brand—"El Siete Loco"—from the sta- ble of actor Tommy Lee Jones, a patron of the Harvard program. Bow-tied gentlemen, wide-brim-hatted ladies, and loafer-clad kids break away from their tailgating parties and head to the field to replace divots kicked up by galloping hooves. It could be a scene from 1915, until you look closer. The atmosphere is different. "If someone is look ing for t he Pr ince Cha rles or Ra lph Lauren polo experience here," says Crocker Snow, three of whose five sons have played professionally, "they have the wrong club." His son Nick, a real estate investment advisor who helped revive the Harvard polo program as a Crimson undergraduate and was instrumental in br ing ing t he Ha r va rd versus Mongolia exhibit ion match to Myopia, leans from the saddle to exchange words with his father, the coach of the Harvard team, who wears a peaked Mongolian hat on this sun-drenched Sunday. The game's greatest athletes—the horses—step onto the field. It's time for the next chukker to begin. White mares and black ties. Petits fours and Dom Pérignon. Such trap- pings w ill forever be pa r t of Myopia. But t he Boston polo pa ladins a re determined to give the sport a more democratic cast. "The sport of kings," after all, has to survive. Poor, whose family, like the Snows, has been a mainstay of Myopia polo for generations, operates a training program for new (translation: not "old line") players called Stage Hill Polo, run out of his Newbury barn and the Myopia practice arena. A new vanguard of riders, drawn mostly from the ranks of white-collar professionals, learn the rudiments of riding and polo from Poor, w it h ma ny going on to join t he recent ly for med Boston Polo League or the North Shore club teams that compete at Myopia and at a few ot her f ields in t he a rea. T he more dedicated event ua lly buy t heir ow n horses and even join the winter migration to Wellington, Florida, to train and compete. "This is a great game," says Poor, "like hockey on horseback. I've played a lot of sports, but there's nothing like polo. I've never seen people get as excited, men or women, about playing a game." Myopia Hunt Club, the epicenter of Boston's polo scene, was started as a baseball club by a group of Harvard men in the 1800s. bostoncommon-magazine.com 111