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George Smith Patton Jr, one of World War II’s most colourful and acclaimed generals, was also one of the US Cavalry’s best known polo players – a hell-for-leather competitor who took the field against such greats as Tommy Hitchcock and W. Averell Harriman.

Patton was born in 1885 to a well-todo California family that originated in Virginia, tracing its ancestry back to George Washington. The year after graduating from West Point in 1909, where he learnt his polo, the young Patton married into a rich Massachusetts family. He was one of the wealthiest army officers of his time, with the means to indulge his passion for horses, including a fine string of polo ponies that he could not have afforded on his cavalry pay.

George, his wife Beatrice and their three children were all accomplished equestrians. They engaged in steeple chasing, show jumping and fox hunting on horses trained by Patton himself and were part of the active social scene of these sports, in addition to the polo circuit. He drove fast expensive cars, taught himself to fly and sailed his own boat to Hawaii when posted there.

Wherever Patton was stationed during his army career, his horses went with him. Between the wars he played at Meadowbrook on Long Island, Governor’s Island in New York and on the Mall in Washington DC. He achieved a 4-goal handicap and was, on occasion, captain of the US Army polo team, competing in major tournaments such as the US Polo Association’s Junior Championships.

During World War II, General Patton became a bit of a dandy in cavalry jodhpurs, riding boots and highly polished battle helmet (risking attention from German snipers) and with what some press accounts called a ‘pearl-handled revolver’ at his waist.

‘IVORY-god-f***ing-damn-handled!’ Patton corrected. ‘Only a pimp in a New Orleans whorehouse or a tin-horn gambler would carry a pearl-handled pistol.’ Patton owned a variety of side arms, from snubnosed .38s to a .357 Magnum. As a young lieutenant in his first battle experience, he carved two notches in his Colt .45 after a shoot-out during a punitive expedition

Patton in Hawaii, 1933

against Pancho Villa in Mexico.

When Patton represented the USA in the Olympics’ first modern pentathlon at Stockholm in 1912, it was his use of a .38 calibre military revolver, rather than the usual .22 target pistol, that cost him a medal. He excelled in the horse, sabre, running, and swimming sections, but in pistol shooting was ruled to have once missed the target, despite arguing that the crucial shot went unrecorded through the large holes blasted in the bullseye by his .38 slugs, and so only came in fifth in the pentathlon.

Despite his penchant for profanity and four-letter words, Patton was also fond of prayer. One night, before an important polo match, Beatrice found him on his knees, his polo helmet and stick laid out on the bed. Was he praying for victory? ‘Hell no,’ he replied, ‘I’m praying that I do my best.’

Ironically, it was Patton himself who drove the changes that led to the demise of army polo, which had been based largely upon the horse cavalry. He was the first officer in the newly formed US Army Tank Corps in World War I, and he campaigned tirelessly between the wars for the mechanisation of the cavalry, arguing that armour was the future of land warfare.

General George Patton came through his brilliant World War II tank campaigns unscathed, only to die in a minor road accident in 1945. One can safely surmise that ‘Old Blood and Guts’ would have much preferred to fall in battle – or on a polo field.