Women ‘dominate’ polo play at Spa City Polo Club
Local live polo is making a comeback — thanks to Saratoga Polo School, which is really hitting its stride this season.
The polo starts at sundown.
Head out to the beautiful Patagonia Farm this fall for an exciting arena polo match that begins at 7 p.m. every Thursday through the end of October.
Plus, new tournaments are being added, too, bringing hundreds of polo fans to Saratoga from all over the region. It’s certainly been an exciting few debut years for Stillwater’s Saratoga Polo School and its Spa City Polo Club, which has really taken off this year — with bigger things to come.
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“We've had such positive feedback,” says General and Operations Manager Shannon Hildebrandt. “People love it. Everybody who comes out to watch thinks it’s so cool. We get a lot of, ‘We had no idea this was here.’”
When Hildebrandt’s boyfriend, Mario DiSalvo, bought the property in 2020 — yup, right before Covid — he assumed that traditional polo grounds were in his future. But after July 2021 brought 28 days of rain, making polo impossible (the grass is way too slippery for the horses), the long-time player from Argentina switched courses and built an arena with a stone dust surface instead.
“The arena's fun because sometimes with grass polo, you have no idea what's going on because the field is so big,” Hildebrandt says. “But with the arena, everything is happening right in front of you. The horses are literally inches away when they come flying down the boards — so close that you have to know when to back up a little bit. It's really fun for the spectators.
“And we have a great announcer that keeps you engaged and lets you know what's going on.”
The Saratoga Polo School welcomes students at all levels, including beginners, creating a polo family that loves coming out to watch the matches.
“We had a ton of fun playing in the arena after we built it, and our clients loved it,” Hildebrandt says. “And we grew from there. We put up a deck [for spectators] in 2023, and this season is the first year that we've pushed for spectators for our weekly polo and really been like, ‘Hey, come on out and watch this.’”
One thing that spectators will notice: Polo cuts across gender lines.
“Polo is always mixed unless it's specifically a women's tournament,” Hildebrandt says. “Usually, the majority of mixed polo is male players. But here we have a lot more female clients than we do males. So during a lot of our games, women dominate.”
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If you’ve never been to an arena polo match, expect a fast-paced and exciting two hours.
“The quarters or innings of a match are called chukkers,” Hildebrandt says. “There could be four or five or six, and each is seven minutes and 30 seconds.”
Teams have three players each, and horses are switched out every chukker, with some coming back for more play after a break (maxing out at two). Patagonia currently has 45 horses, the care of which Hildebrandt oversees. (About 15 are cared for by others in the summer or full-time.) “They're all my children,” she says.
DiSalvo taught Hildebrandt to play and is the pro at the school.
“Anyone who plays or teaches polo will tell you that the most important part is time in the saddle, learning how to ride,” she says. “If you can ride and control the horse, you're going to have a much easier time learning how to hit the ball and use the mallet. That being said, it is possible to learn both at the same time, which we do teach.”
The horses are athletes, too.
“It takes a lot of conditioning,” Hildebrandt says. “To keep them in shape, the horses get worked four to six days a week. We do what are called sets, where you ride one horse and have four more horses with you. So you have two on either side, and you can turn on the one that you're riding and then the four with you trot. The trotting is better for them because it works different muscles in their back. We do that on a track that goes around our field. If three of us go do sets, we can work 15 horses at once, which is pretty amazing.
“We also single them — we ride them, make them do lead changes, make them stop — make them work all the different motions that they use in a game. They love the game, too.”
With each horse having his or her own personality, you never know what’s next.
“The horse is very important and will change the game for you,” Hildebrandt says. “You get on a horse that you are comfortable with and that you know — you can go out there and have the best chukker of your life. But if you get on a horse that you don't know that well or you might be a little uncomfortable on, you might just ride around for that chukker and do nothing.”
Never a dull moment.
For more information, visit saratogapoloschool.org, and watch their Instagram for schedule and tournament updates.