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Histoire du polo
Polo has origines in China and Persia around 2,000 years ago. The name of the game may well come from the word “pholo” meaning 'ball' or 'ballgame' in the Balti language of Tibet.The first recorded game took place in 600BC between the Turkomans and Persians. In the fourth century a polo ground (300 yards long and with goalposts eight yards apart) was built at Ispahan, then the capital, by Shah Abbas the Great.
The Moguls were largely responsible for taking the game from Persia to the east and, by the 16th century, the Emperor Babur had established it in India. It had already long been played in China and Japan, but had died out by the time the West came in contact with those countries. In the 1850s, British tea planters discovered the game in Manipur on the Burmese border with India. They founded the world’s first polo club at Silchar, west of Manipur. Other clubs followed and today the oldest in the world is the Calcutta Club which founded in 1862.
Malta followed in 1868 because soldiers and naval officers stopped off there on their way home from India. In 1869, Edward “Chicken” Hartopp organised the first game. Then known as “hockey on horseback,” it was played on a hastily-rolled Hounslow Heath where a shortlist of about 10 rules was assembled.
But, it was John Watson (1856-1908), who formulated the first real rules of the game in India in the 1870s. He later formed the celebrated Freebooters team who won the first Westchester Cup match in 1886. He was a key player at the All Ireland Polo Club which was founded in 1872.
The first polo club in England was Monmouthshire, founded in 1872 by Captain Francis “Tip” Herbert (1845- 1922), at Clytha Park, near Abergavenny. Others, including Hurlingham, followed quickly.
Handicaps were introduced by the USA in 1888 and by England and India in 1910.
The first official match in Argentina took place on 3rd September 1875. The game had been taken there by English and Irish engineers and ranchers.
In 1876, Lt Col Thomas St.Quintin, introduced the game to Australia. He is credited with being the Father of Australian Polo. Two of his brothers stayed on there as ranchers and helped the game to develop. In the same year, polo was introduced to the USA by James Gordon Bennett Junior.
Today, more than 77 countries play polo. It was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1939 and has now been recognised again by the International Olympic Committee.
