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Published: July 24th 2013
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Three Wise Men
Eying up the talent Chukka’s, the playing of mostly 4 sometimes 8 x 7 minute periods. Polo, a fiercely competitive game, akin to rugby on horse back, used in ancient times as cavalry training, battle without the sword
The Mongolian horse is centuries of breeding, obviously hardy as they are turned out in the mountains over winter. There are moments of great hilarity watching big western men select, mount and try to drive these little horses, “basically stable”, was Jarrod’s comment.
There are six teams gathered for this exhibition, two Mongolian boys, one Mongolian girls, one each of Harvard and the Kiwi team.
Early afternoon it got quite cold and stormy, the tent blew down, heavy rain showers, chaos of wet gear, two teams still playing, the show must go on, all this observed from the bowels of the downed tent, protecting my camera of course. The Kiwis playing Harvard, first up, getting used to the horses and enjoying the outing.
Day two was more finding the best horse hilarity. Harvard girls vs Mongolian girls, NZ vs Mongolia 1
st round, as shown in the photos this included the Mares Milk Ceremony, which reminded me of the Ceremony of the Scottish Quark
Two beautiful Ladies
Watching polo.
Behind every good man
filled with the beautiful Malt. It was another day of getting used to the horses and improving Polo all round.
Day 3 is Presidential visit day, so everybody had to be early and ready for action by 8am, tighter security all round, an air of expectancy. 1
st up for the day was Harvard vs Mongolia, El Presidente spent some time at Harvard so our Impresario wanted to have that game playing when the President arrived. Of course nothing goes according to plan and there was horse rearranging going on as the President drove up. A considerable amount of hurry up and the ball was rolled in as he Alighted his car, from then on everything went like clockwork, Christophe’s whole performance was something to behold, the game, photo ops, meet and greets, the nice sunny day, gift ceremony, whoosh bang loaded up and he was gone. The small window of opportunity was filled admirably then it was back to polo.
The Mongolian side really came out and took it to the Kiwis and in the end gave them a bit of a beating, perhaps not according to plan but the best result for the future of the Genghis
Kahn Polo Club, as it showed those who have been involved a great improvement and hope for the future, of which most of the NZ side will be a part of in helping train some of the promising players.
Who would have possibly thought a few years ago that Porangahau/Wanstead would have a close international connection with Mongolian Polo.
The Genghis Kahn Polo Club is the brainchild of Christophe Gierke to help resurrect polo in Mongolia. He managed to unearth an etching from the 14 century of Mongolians hitting a ball like object with a mallet, this etching adorns the shirts. They do not however claim polo, this I believe has been traced back to the single centuries to Persia and then the English would probably argue the toss about it all as well.
Christophe’s argument is there are these thousands of kids throughout the country racing horses to the age of 12, after that nothing except for the herders and a few. He’s a man who likes very big odds where every small settlement has a basketball hoop. Its not hard to imagine half a dozen kids on horseback sticks in hand chasing after
How do I.......
get more speed out of this horse a ball around those Ger camps, especially in this horse mad world but there are no Michael Jordan’s of polo.
It was all a wonderful time spent with Christophe, his family and all the Mongolian team, to see the developing relationship between Genghis Kahn Club and the Porangahau crew and to see Hamish in action, off and on the field, I think he ended up a very happy man that he had to play, watch out Wanstead A!!
We were hoping to get away from the festival site as quickly as we could after the game, get into Ulan for a good shower, meal and some of the Kiwi crew were flying out that night. The longer we waited the bigger the traffic jam was looking, needless to say our timing was awful. However the entertainment was outstanding. The Mongolian driver doesn't wait in a nice impatient line like we would in NZ. There being no fences they just head off across the Steppe, little cars, big 4x4s, lines of them racing up every valley trying to get that little bit ahead. Cars straddling ditches, stuck on mounds, the odd bit of drunken biffo, 5 abreast going one
way down a 2 lane road, the lane supposed to be going in the opposite direction pushed out into the paddocks. It was fantastic mayhem, a horse riding DNA transferred to the car, jump in and straight to the gallop.
The shower and Meal were great.
Now what……….. that is the question ?
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Hame
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4+ chukka ponies..amazingly tough....and my little pony had enough gas to amble me back to camp at a cracking pace after it had played polo for 2 hours.