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By Betsy Burke Parker

On the surface, steeplechase and polo appear to have little in common on the horse sports spectrum. Hurtling over hurdles isn’t a lot like swatting a small wooden ball around a level grass court.

But don’t get caught up in the minutia.

Study a little closer, and similarities swim to the surface. Both sports favor swiftness and bravery at their very essence, each drawing heavily on the raw power of the thoroughbred, calling on hundreds of years of selective breeding for speed and stamina.

It makes perfect sense that racing horsemen and women are often lured into polo. Those that play both contend that the precision in the swing of a polo mallet connecting with a 3-inch ball at a flat-out run compares neatly to finding a perfect, efficient take-off spot for a 4-foot tall hurdle at 30 miles an hour.

Steeplechase and polo require fitness and balance, athleticism and tenacity. Reaction time is critical.

It’s a weird juncture of living in the moment but thinking 20 strides ahead at the same time, says polo umpire and longtime steeplechase horsewoman Beth Supik.

“To be in control, sometimes, you have to let go of that control,” Supik says. “You can’t manhandle a racehorse, you can’t manhandle a polo pony and have them work for you, work with you. To be powerful, sometimes you have to be powerless.

“(Hall of Fame trainer) Mike Smithwick once told me that ‘you’ve gotta be brave enough (as a rider) to slip the reins. ‘Take it to the knot,’ he’d say. It’s the rider’s job to work with the horse, and sometimes that means helping by staying out of the way.

“That’s the kind of bravery you need (to excel) at either one of those sports.”

“If you think about it, it’s pretty natural,” connecting steeplechase and polo, Peter says. Many racing horsemen and women are involved in both, from polo patron and leading steeplechase owner Gil Johnston to former jump jockey, polo player and race director Liz McKnight, from former amateur owner-rider and polo facility developer Nelson Gunnell to the late Tom Voss – rider then trainer then avid polo player.

Arundel believes the deeper the connection to the horse world already, the more likely a new polo conversion was likely. “We found the ones that stick with polo tended to already be in the horse community. The people come out from the suburbs and the city on weekends and watch, and some of them come and take lessons, but the ones that really get into it – like Maureen Brennan (she formed Virginia International Polo and created a polo empire at historic Llangollen Farm in Upperville, Virginia) or Nelson Gunnell (he carved out Banbury Cross field and arena at his former farm in Middleburg, Virginia) – they were already in (the horse world.)

“There’s spectacular entertainment value, from polo, from steeplechase.”

Polo player greeting spectators after a match at Brandywine Polo in Kennett Square, Pa.

To illustrate this tight link between steeplechase and polo, we reached into the jump community to find out more. From high-goal players to professional umpires, from team sponsors to farm league beginners, they were eager to jump in and help demystify the twin passions.

🏇 Her first formal polo was the summer of 1994 before she enrolled at Garrison Forest. She took lessons through the Elkridge Harford Pony Club, which gave her a leg up, Supik recalls. She made the varsity squad her junior year and helped the team win the girls’ nationals. Her senior year, they won the girls’ nationals again, earning a berth to the open interscholastic championships. They beat up on the Valley Forge Military School in the prestigious tournament becoming the only girls team to win the open competition in 70-plus years of history.

🏇 Supik played on the Colorado State University varsity polo team. “I was in it to win it by this point,” she says, becoming a starter and captain of teams that won the regionals and were runners-up to Cornell in the women’s championship finals.

"I was an equine science major, but I realized I was giving up real training with some of the world’s top professionals back home on the east coast, so I left CSU” and took a break from polo. Over the years, Supik has worked for Frank Bonsal, Jay Griswold, Phillip Dutton, Tony Leahy, Boyd Martin, Tom Voss and – for the past four years, for Irv Naylor and Cyril Murphy.

“I hadn’t played polo in years,” Supik says, “but I was invited to an alumni game at Kelly Wells’ farm, and I thought, ‘man, I really miss this.’

“I leaned into it, and eight years later, I’m still doing it.

“I’m grateful to Mr. Naylor and Cyril Murphy for allowing me the flexibility to (work as a USPA umpire) and serve on the southeast regional committee for interscholastic and intercollegiate polo.

Read more about Beth Supik in the February issue of the US Polo Association magazine.

🏇 His father, Arthur W. “Nick” Arundel, won the Virginia Gold Cup, the Maryland Hunt Cup and most of the nation’s top races as an owner, and created the Great Meadow field events center, home to the Virginia Gold Cup and International Gold Cup jump meets.

🏇 Peter Arundel was the conduit for his father to link steeplechasing and polo, he says. “Polo at Great Meadow, once Great Meadow was (established as the new) home to the Virginia Gold Cup, was a no-brainer, but I had to convince dad.”

Peter grew up hunting with the Middleburg Orange County Beagles and event training with Olympian Jimmy Wofford. “But I’d never played polo,” he says. “I was at a black tie affair in Washington, D.C. and met (big) Joe Muldoon. You know how you get to talking and reach ‘horses’ in about two sentences. He invited me to play up at Potomac with them.

“I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. I loved riding, I loved team sports, was good at ball sports in school. Joe Junior showed me the ropes, and I played a season there with him and his brother Charlie.

“I was talking to my dad one day and was saying how there’s not much polo in Virginia, and how I was tired of driving all the way to Maryland to play, and how he had this new place Great Meadow, and how it was a natural. Arena polo was the plan to bring the polo to the people. It was how we could involve spectators, play under the lights and capture a whole new crowd, both horse people (from other horse sports) plus people coming out from the city.

“You know how my dad was, he was pretty theatrical. He put his hand on his forehead and said, ‘My god! There’s nothing to do around here on Friday nights! This will be perfect!”

The Great Meadow polo arena was an instant success, with Twilight Polo games on Friday nights the first few years eventually swapping to Saturday nights as more spectators came out from Washington, D.C. and surrounding suburbs. Weekend traffic proved more palatable than Friday afternoon trying to head west on I-66.

Read more about the history of Twilight Polo HERE, in Middleburg Life.

“I love both polo and steeplechasing because of the sense of communities both sports have,” Obrecht says. “I have created life-long friends and connections from all around the world. You don’t get (that) from many other sports.

“I can go to almost any polo club and there will be either people I know or connections to people from home.

“And it’s the same with racing. One New Year’s Day I was at the Tramore Races in Ireland. I felt like I was back home in Baltimore with all the faces I recognized and friends that were there.

“We all share a common bond of the love for the sport and the animals that allow us to do it.”

🏇 West Grove, Pennsylvania resident grew up foxhunting. He won the Iroquois (1969 with Blockbuster) and the Maryland Hunt Cup (Bewley’s Hill, 1984) as an amateur rider.

🏇 Founder and Race Chair of Willowdale Steeplechase

🏇 President of the Brandywine Polo Club in Kennett Square, Pa.

🏇 In 1971, Frolic Weymouth invited him to the Brandywine Polo Club to try polo. “Bob Connors, the manager, put me on Roger Ramjet, handed me a mallet and said swing while cantering because the game is played at that speed,” Stroud recalls. “And what a delight not to have to yank on a horse's mouth and drag him left or right. Steering with legs and neck reining on a smooth-gaited polo pony … wonderful. Of course my arm felt like spaghetti for a few days afterwards.”

🏇 Played on 8-goal all-am teams at Brandywine and in 12 to 20-goal tournaments from Myopia to Point Clear, Alabama and Wellington and Sarasota, Florida

🏇 Played in England, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica and Guatemala. “It’s really fun when the British Combined Services Team comes to Brandywine every two years and, win or lose, I can make up some story about the only battle the British won in the Revolutionary War - The Battle of the Brandywine.”

Read more with Dixon Stroud and polo, here: Polo ponies: hardest working athletes in equine world

🏇 An American industrialist, magazine publisher, film producer and art collector, Peter Brant is deeply involved in thoroughbred horse racing and high-goal polo. He’s married to model Stephanie Seymour.

Brant was behind moving Mr. Prospector from where he started out as a stallion in Ocala, Florida (for $7,500) to Claiborne Farm in Lexington, Kentucky (his top fee was $460,000) where he one of the most influential sires in the American studbook. He campaigned 1984 Kentucky Derby winner Swale and bred 1995 Derby winner Thunder Gulch. He was a major shareholder in the Fasig-Tipton sales company.

Brant campaigned multiple hurdle stakes winner Romeo Lima in the early 1980s. He owns horses in partnership with flat-jump owners Robert LaPenta, Dell Ridge LLC and George Strawbridge.

🏇 Brant is an accomplished polo player and at one time was the highest-rated amateur player in the U.S. Brant is co-founder of the Greenwich Polo Club, the Saratoga Polo Association and the Bridgehampton Polo Club.

🏇 Lives in Monkton, Maryland, grew up in New England. For the last 20 years has been the proprietor of Yoicks!, an art and retail establishment beside the My Lady’s Manor racecourse.

🏇 Active steeplechase racecaller and commentator, part-time polo announcer and player.

🏇 Honorary whipper-in for the Elkridge-Harford Hunt.

🏇 As a jockey, won one race under rules – the foxhunters’ timber at the Virginia Gold Cup meet with Hot It Up in 2005.

🏇 Finney first picked up a polo mallet in college, joining the Skidmore College (New York) team. He spent summers at the Bostwick family’s Village Farms club in Gilbertsville, New York.

“Following a forgettable performance for Young Saratoga vs. Young Myopia in 1984, I was invited to Argentina by Hector and Susie Barrentes and then stayed for the better part of the next three years,” Finney says.

He's played on three continents (including Australia) featuring appearances for White Birch in Greenwich and Saratoga, and riding for Cold Comfort in the East Coast Open at Myopia.

“The three most pronounced, shared elements in my dual (steeplechase-polo) experience have been a certain sociability, an adrenal boost and a microphone,” he says. “Both interests have taken me to remarkable places and introduced me to a like group of people, and the thrill factor afforded by both sports has always been difficult to step away from.

“As for the announcing, it was Tony Coppola who encouraged me to start announcing at Gilbertsville, and his early tutelage has been the practical basis for most of my attempts to capture live action in both games and relate it in an engaging way.”

🏇 Trainer based in Butler, Maryland; former jump jockey (regular rider for 2008 Eclipse Award winner Good Night Shirt)

🏇 New to polo, Dowling plays with Posey Obrecht’s BadAss Polo league.

“I just play for fun with a team Posey put together for people who haven’t played” previously, he says. “I took it up because I love trying any discipline in equestrian.

“I played hurling when I was younger in Ireland, which is like field hockey, so I had a bit of coordination.

“For someone who has ridden for over 30 years, I find (polo) totally challenging. (I like it that) a lot of the ponies are fillies from off the racetrack, so it’s great to see them train on to something else.”

🏇 Grew up in Sparks, Maryland. Father, Tom, rode over jumps as an amateur, was instrumental in starting the Mt. Carmel Hounds

🏇 Married to Peter Fenwick, Cuppy Fenwick’s youngest son

🏇 Has no direct polo experience, personally (“unless you count a polo clinic I took in 8th grade,”) but daughter Daisy rides on the JV team at Cornell

🏇 Helped connect the dots of junior polo players and junior race riders for Sunday’s Land Preservation Trust Junior Champions' Day being held at the Shawan Downs racecourse in Cockeysville, Maryland. “Polo ponies are so well ‘broke,’ they stop when you ask,” usually unlike a fit racehorse or race pony, she says. “There’s a lot of kids that play polo that have never raced, and a lot of kids who race that don’t play polo. It seemed obvious to connect … these two groups of risk-takers and thrill-seekers.”

Garrison Forest ponies are being used, and Work To Ride members will be in the irons alongside regular pony race participants.

In addition to the polo pony race, on the card are leadline divisions, Shetland pony turf and hurdle races and a restricted young adult turf race.

More details are at shawandowns.com/lpt-junior-champions-day/

Bassett was born in 1906 in Summit, New Jersey. He began his association with horses at an early age, foxhunting as a boy with his family.

🏇 Bassett studied at Williams College in Massachusetts and the Art Students League in New York City. As a sculptor, Bassett cast bronze portraits of steeplechase horses Hotspur II and Emerald Isle III, in 1923. He sculpted polo players and fighting game cocks, his other two loves.

🏇 Bassett rode races as an amateur starting in the late 1920s, chiefly for Marion duPont Scott’s Montpelier in Orange, Virginia. He famously partnered Scott’s Battleship in his American hurdle wins; Battleship raced in England, winning the 1938 English Grand National before returning to Montpelier for stud duty. Battleship was inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame in 1969.

He won more than 100 races, and was a real stylist, according to eyewitness reports. Hall of Fame trainer Preston Burch once described his saddle skills, saying: "Bassett was to steeplechasing what Eddie Arcaro was to flat racing.”

🏇 Bassett was NSA (then NSHA) leading trainer in 1934. He was inducted into the racing Hall of Fame in 1972.

🏇 He was a high-goal polo player, playing with squads up and down the east coast throughout his adult life.

(Photo, above, of Carroll Bassett and Battleship from the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame website)

Born in Bisby Lake, New York. Grandfather Jabez A. Bostwick was a founder and treasurer of the Standard Oil Company of New York and partner of John Rockefeller.

Bostwick started playing polo as a young boy at the Aiken Prep School; his aunt and uncle – the Thomas Hitchcocks were integral in developing Aiken, South Carolina into the polo mecca it remains to this day.

He skipped out of college, once quipping “there is no sense to sit in school when you can sit on a horse and go somewhere.”

🏇 Bostwick was NSA (NSHA) champion amateur in 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1941. He also rode to the top level on the flat, finishing fourth with The Broom in the 1928 Belmont Stakes, riding for his uncle, Ambrose Clark.

(Photo, above, of Bostwick aboard Chenango in 1931, courtesy of the Aiken Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame and Museum.)

In 1932, he became just the second jockey (possibly the last when he repeated the feat two weeks later) to win a flat race and a steeplechase on the same card at Belmont Park.

🏇 In 1962, Bostwick was the first jump trainer with more than $1 million in earnings in a single year.

He trained six champions: Oedipus – 1950, 1951, Neji – 1955, 1957, 1958, and Ancestor – 1959.

He was leading trainer (by money won) in 1955 and trained winners of almost $1.5 million from 1946-1972. He was inducted into racing’s Hall of Fame in 1968.

🏇 Bostwick was also a skilled court tennis player, combining his considerable riding talent and ball skills to become an 8-goal polo player. Bostwick was inducted into the Polo Hall of Fame in 1996.

Bostwick won the prestigious U.S. Open Polo Championship six times with Greentree (1935-1936), Bostwick Field (1939, 1950), Meadow Brook (1953) and CCC-Meadow Brook (1954).

He went on to win the Monty Waterbury Cup, the 12-Goal Inter-Circuit, Chairman’s Cup, the Copper Cup, the Butler Handicap, the 20-Goal Championship, the Junior Championship and East Coast Open.

Bostwick also represented the U.S. in the 1936 Cup of the Americas series and 1949 World Championship.

🏇 “Polo for the public” was his motto at the Bostwick Field on Long Island, New York, with some of the first monied tournaments played there.

🏇 Bostwick died from a heart attack at age 72 in a 1982 match in Palm Beach, Florida.

🏇 Son Charlie Bostwick is president of the Aiken Polo Club board of directors.

The Pete Bostwick Memorial 12-goal tournament is slated May 19-June 6 at Aiken’s New Bridge Polo Club.

Photo from Brandywine Polo Club, courtesy of Willowdale Steeplechase.