Simon Tomlinson

Not since 1939 has England had a 10-goal polo player. However, together with the Gerald Balding Appeal, the HPA Development Committee and its chair Simon Tomlinson are determined to change that

illuSTr ATioN PHil DiSlEy

Three years ago, when I was given the great honour of chairing the HPA Development Committee I posed a question: ‘Why, since Gerald Balding, has Britain produced only two 9-goal players and no 10-goal players at all, despite having probably the best-organised tournament season in the world and a Pony Club programme that is the envy of everyone? ’

The committee took up the gauntlet. By comparing how our children develop with how Argentine youngsters progress, we identified a number of key factors and are implementing programmes to increase the quality of and awareness among young players from the age of 10 upwards.

Our aims are as follows: to instil the ambition to be better than the best; to provide coaching at home and in the southern hemisphere during our winter; to encourage better umpiring and an observance of the rules of the game; to promote team play and four-man ‘positive’ polo; to stress the importance of horsemanship, getting really well mounted, and the schooling and making of polo ponies; and to teach horse mastership and pony welfare.

Steady strides have already been made, with the result that the overall standard of children’s polo has consistently improved – as could be seen by the quality of the games played by the finalists in the Junior HPA sections at the Pony Club Championships at Cowdray in August. Each year, youngsters with potential talent are selected for development courses run by senior HPA coaches, with the support of less experienced coaches keen to improve their abilities as well. Courses are also run in South Africa by Buster MacKenzie and, over the past three years, 47 children have benefited from these intensive, week-long introductions to the Springbok sporting ethic. A summerterm four-chukka league for schools has been established too, and a ‘colts’ and prep-school three-chukka league will be instated in 2014.

There are at least three major lessons to be learnt from Britain’s spectacular success in the 2012 London Olympics. Firstly, the essential ingredient is a dedicated ambition to win. Secondly, this ambition will only reach fruition if it is supported by really focused coaching and training and, thirdly, adequate funding is needed to deliver all of this. If this is true of cycling, rowing and track athletics, it is even more true of polo, with its multitude of different skills to be mastered and the wide scope for the improvement of both human and equine athletes, quite apart from the high cost of participating in the sport.

For the Development Committee to have a chance of delivering its objectives, there is an urgent need for an income of around £250,000 a year. The HPA annual budget for development is £60,000 and this is unlikely to increase due to the many other demands and the fall in the income in recent years from the Coronation Cup, which has hitherto been the main source of funds.

And what will the money be spent on? Loans to help with the purchase and hiring of ponies – children need to play three- or four-chukka polo as young as possible and this requires access to more than one pony. The funding of coaches and better players for practices – playing good-quality practices, ideally with a coach and one better player on each side is a necessity, as is the funding of a better player in each team for a tournament. The payment of expenses – no player should be forced to play as a professional in low-handicap polo. The provision of courses run by excellent coaches, who need ongoing training, and the promotion of courses abroad during the winter.

As one of the objectives of the Polo Charity, set up in 1992 by the late Lord Cowdray, is to assist with the training of those in full-time education, its trustees have kindly agreed to a ring-fenced fund being set up to be used for development. In this way, both donors and the charity will be able to benefit from HMRC Gift Aid rules for charitable donations. By way of an example, at current rates of tax, a donation of £100 a month for four years would cost a higher-rate tax payer £3,360 over the four years and the charity would receive £5,760, including the tax rebate.

The stewards of the HPA have agreed to launch the Gerald Balding Appeal to take advantage of this and hopefully raise quite a significant sum. The objective of the appeal is to raise a capital fund that will be invested to generate an income. Augmented by both commercial sponsorship and the existing HPA grant, this investment will provide an annual fund of around £250,000.

The Gerald Balding Appeal will be aimed at the whole polo community. Children who play in the Pony Club and at school will be invited to organise and attend fundraising events, while their parents will be asked to support their efforts, and all players throughout the HPA will be invited to contribute.

Individual clubs, in turn, will be asked to have a fundraising day in which their nonplaying supporters will have an opportunity to make donations. It is hoped to eventually reach all those who may have picked up a polo stick at a distant time in the past in some far-flung part of the old British Empire! I hope the fund and its objectives might even appeal to those whose nearest contact with the game has been to read The Maltese Cat.

We have won the Westchester Cup for the third time running – a feat achieved by England previously only in the first three matches of the historic series in 1886, 1900 and 1902. However, we have yet to win the FIP 14-Goal World Championships, we have yet to have a British team in the Argentine Open, and it is 70 years since we had a 10-goal British player – in the shape of Gerald Balding. The task to raise the funds is a tough one, but with support from the whole polo community, our goal can certainly be achieved.