Every Day Is Special: September 3

September 3 - Polo in Argentina!

Posted on September 3, 2020

On this date in 1875, the first official game of polo was played in Argentina.

Which maybe would seem like no big deal to most of us - I, for example, don't pay much attention to polo! - but polo went on to become one of the most popular sports in Argentina.

I didn't learn much about polo from
the movie Pretty Woman, but I did
learn that it's posh. You have to
dress up, with even a hat and
gloves for women, just to watch it!

Polo is that team game that we see in movies occasionally, with posh Brits on horseback hitting small balls with long-handled mallets.

It's been called the sport of kings. The game seems to have originated in Central Asia, probably invented by Iranian and/or Turkic peoples. The modern sport of polo evolved from a game played in India.

The sport is now played all over the world, although professional polo teams only exist in 16 nations. One of those nations is, of course, Argentina.

The cool thing about being an Argentine polo player is that Argentina's professional season (Sept. to Dec.) is offset from other nations' seasons, because of course Argentina lies in the Southern Hemisphere. So many Argentine players take advantage of their break to travel to North America or Europe to earn more money by playing more polo.

And Argentine players are generally so good that the ones who play elsewhere are called "hired assassins." They are so good that, even though polo is not now an Olympic sport, it once was, and Argentina is the reigning gold medal team!

It was British ranchers who introduced polo to Argentina, as life on the pampas revolved around horses, and the whole nation had a strong horse culture. The cowboys of Argentina are called gauchos, and they rapidly picked up the sport and became really good at it!

Above, gauchos.
Below: some people say that the pampas
of Argentina seem to have been made for polo!

By the way, Argentina still has a strong horse culture, and it's cool to see that you don't have to be the posh elite to play polo in Argentina. Average people, workers, gauchos all play...