Women Polo Players Come Into Their Own At Myopia

by Brion O’Connor

When she thinks of Myopia’s inaugural Women’s Challenge this September, longtime polo member Amanda Roberts, one of Peter Poor’s three polo-playing daughters, allows herself a wry smile. Roberts is a link to Myopia’s past, and future. She knows that there was a time, more than 50 years ago, when women were forbidden to play on Myopia’s fields. Her grandmother, Doris Poor, was among those Myopia members forced to play polo elsewhere, simply because of her gender, and her aunt was a change agent for the club in the 1970s.

“Although I never saw her play, I’m told that my aunt, Margaret Poor, was an amazing athlete and phenomenal women’s polo player,” says Roberts.

Roberts’ aunt – Margaret Poor McKeon – was a Myopia pioneer. Bold and relentless, McKeon helped erase the divisive walls at the club, introducing all- women polo tournaments to Myopia in the 1970s that brought together some of the best female players in the country. Her spirit, and her legacy, is evident not only in the upcoming Women’s Challenge, but every match that features female players.

‘Myopia is more welcoming than ever for women,” says Roberts. “It’s rare that there is a game where there is not one woman on the team or on the field.”

The Women’s Challenge represents the latest chapter for female players at Myopia, established in the spirit of the popular all-women’s East Coast Open that fell victim to Covid. “I’m very excited about (the Challenge) and plan to participate and encourage as many female polo players as I can to join me,” says Roberts.

At Myopia Polo, growth has come from both within and outside the club. Terri Campbell, a Myopia member and chairwoman of the Equine Welfare Committee, was taking an equitation class at Cornell “for fun” when she learned about the school’s polo program. “I had never seen a match, so I went to a game and was fascinated by the skill of the horses and the skill of the riders,” she says. “I started taking polo lessons after graduation.”

Like many players living on Boston’s North Shore, male and female, Campbell first learned to play polo at Poor’s Stage Hill Polo in Newbury.

“It was an economical way to learn the sport because the horses are provided as part of the cost,” she says. “When you get to the point when you buy your own horse is when you really start to get committed. I recall that my fellow riders in those early lessons were split pretty evenly between men and women.”

Likewise, Lauren Contenta, a Connecticut native and research associate at Moderna currently living in Arlington, was introduced to polo in college.

“My best friend, who I met through our mutual love for equestrian sports, convinced me to start the polo lesson program at UConn,” says Contenta. “I was nervous at first. The only thing I really knew about polo was that the horses are fast, and it is extremely intense.

“I’m glad I started though. Once you start, it becomes almost like an addiction,” she says. “Women are growing the sport exponentially, and it’s amazing to see it play out in real time. You still see a heavy male presence in high-goal polo, but that’s because the female generation of 10-goal players is developing right now.”

Another leading woman player at Myopia is Ariadne Dogani. Ari has played in every major tournament at Myopia the last two seasons on the Kingswood Polo team and is known for her strong defensive play, often taking the best player on the opposing team, her keen eye and incredible horses.

Dr. Leslie Milne of Gloucester is also a latecomer to the sport. Once she decided to try it, she went all in. A former Olympic Bronze medal champion in field hockey (1984) and an emergency room doctor at Mass General Hospital, Milne currently plays at Myopia and has her own polo farm, BillieBo Farm.

“I had played field hockey at a high level and had ridden horses as a child,” she says. “I saw polo advertised in a community education brochure and it sounded like ‘field hockey on a horse.’ I thought it might be easy, but I was wrong.

“I liked the team aspect of polo as opposed to the individual riding I did as a child,” says Milne. “Now I really appreciate the horses. They have a very hard job to do and I respect their bravery.”

Milne credits coaches like Cissie Snow and Phoebe Ingram with facilitating her entry into the sport, as well as Myopia’s coaching league that “allows beginners to play at a less competitive level than regular Myopia.”

“I’ve stayed in coaching league, as it’s more relaxed and less formal than regular club polo,” she says. “I just want to have fun with my horses and the other players. That’s my only aspiration in polo.”

For newcomers, the commitment needed to play polo is not insignificant.

“You need to have your own horse, or have a reliable, affordable way to access a horse,” says Milne. “Owning a horse is a big financial commitment. This is a big ‘ask’ if you haven’t ever played the sport and don’t even know if you like it.

“Plus, polo is very time-consuming. Going to the barn, getting your horses ready to travel, transporting on a trailer, tacking, playing, cooling-off, and then heading back to the barn” she says. “Start to finish, it’s a 4- to 5-hour process to play for 30 to 40 minutes. You have to enjoy the process or have someone that does that work for you.”

Another deep pool of polo talent consists of the children of players, who typically have ready access to ponies. “The daughters of legacy players at Myopia have had a monumental impact for setting the stage at Myopia,” says Contenta.

Amanda Roberts said she and her two sisters, Jennifer and Alyson, were always around horses and the game thanks to their father.

“I’m told I was at the barn when I was 2 weeks old,” says Roberts, now 37. “I’ve loved horses for as long as I can remember, and I think the sport is perfect for any woman who loves animals and sports.

“Some of my favorite memories are of me, my sisters, Jennifer McLeavy and Alyson Poor, and our best friend, Amanda Snow, all playing polo together and having a ton of fun,” says Roberts. “All of us are still involved in the sport of polo somehow today – Alyson and I help run my father’s polo program and Stage Hill Polo school in Massachusetts and Florida, my sister Jennifer is the executive director of the Polo Training Foundation, and Amanda Snow is the director of player development for the National Youth Tournament Series. We’re all dedicated to helping grow the sport of polo that we love so much.”

Roberts’ stepdaughter, Brynn Roberts, is following a similar path, despite getting a later start “after watching my stepmom play for so many years.”

“I knew I had to give polo a shot,” says Brynn, 19, a freshman at the University of New Hampshire. “Her passion for polo inspired me to start and I soon picked up the same drive for it. The high intensity and complex nature of the sport challenged me in every way, especially starting at an older age.

“Polo is an amazing area for women to create community and numbers within because of the male-dominated nature of the sport,” she says. “The horse creates an equal playing field for both men and women to dominate the play and it’s inspiring to watch women in high-goal polo games because (those teams) have historically been composed of male teams.”

It’s difficult to imagine, given the proliferation of outstanding women polo players locally and nationally, that just a short 50 years ago females weren’t welcome on the Myopia fields. Peter Poor, a longtime Myopia member, recalls the frosty reception one young woman received during the nascent women’s rights movement.

“It was back in the ‘60s, and one of the member’s daughters came to play, and the men wouldn’t allow her to play,” says Poor, 73. “They were all going to leave the field. That’s how straightforward they were.”

According to Poor, women like his mother and sister who wanted to play were relegated to nearby Danvers, on a field that now houses Danvers High School, “but not Myopia.” After Poor’s sister, Margaret McKeon, introduced women’s tournaments to Myopia in the 1970s, several influential polo members, notably Don Little, came to the aid of their female colleagues in the subsequent decades, encouraging more and more women to play at the club. Poor himself, along with his sister, was instrumental in establishing the East Coast Open, a collaborative tournament between Myopia and the Newport International Polo, featuring top players from around the world.

“The atmosphere has changed,” Poor says. “The U.S. Polo Association is made up of 50 percent women now. And they do a great job.”

Today, says Poor, there are no longer any barriers to women based on gender. That’s a significant advantage, not only for women, but the sport itself.

“Horses and horsemanship are the great equalizers in the game, which is one of the reasons why the sport is co-ed at most levels,” says Campbell. “Going back to the origins of polo in Persia, there were women playing the sport centuries ago.

“Today there are more women learning to play polo than ever before,” she says. “In the past, it was often difficult to have enough female players to have a women’s only tournament, but that’s no longer the case. In order for the sport grow, it needs to be all-inclusive.”

Many women are more than capable of holding their own in co-ed competition, say members. In fact, many women enjoy something of a head start in their development because more of them have an equitation background, a tremendous foundation for polo.

“When someone is first starting to learn the game, I don’t think that gender really matters much,” says Campbell, who runs her own investment firm, Archer Bay Capital “It’s a difficult game to learn for both men and women. Often women will have more riding experience than men to start, but the coordination needed to hit the ball, play a position on the team, and not fall off the horse is a challenge for everyone.”

Women have also been well represented in the club’s polo management, with current manager Erica Kratz succeeding long-time manager Kim Maguire last year and overseeing the myriad elements of the game at Myopia, from field repair and maintenance to game organization and equine care. Even the announcing at Sunday matches is done by another Myopia woman player, the remarkable Patricia Johnstone.

“Myopia has a fantastic pool of women in all aspects of the club,” says Contenta. “Whether it be as a player, supporter, or an event organizer, it makes it easier for young women to ask, ‘How do I get started?’

“The inclusion of women as players, coaching staff, spectators, grooms, and announcers is vital to breaking that daunting feeling,” she says. “That makes it exponentially more approachable to women from the outside.”

The number of women now playing reflects that supportive environment.

“The most important and fastest growing demographic in polo in the United States and at Myopia is women,” says club polo captain David Strouss. “Over the last 50 years, the number of women playing polo at Myopia has increased to a level almost equal to the men. This great trend continues to this day at Myopia, with the highest number of women players ever.”

Opportunities to play past the beginner level at Myopia, through the different levels of the sport, were still limited three decades ago. Campbell, now 55, says “at the time, there was only very beginner polo and high-level tournament polo, and nothing in between.” So she went to play in the Newport Polo Club for eight years, which had more advanced beginner and intermediate level polo.

“If the coaching league had existed at Myopia at the time, I probably would have stayed in the club,” she says. “I came back to Myopia to play in a tournament more than 10 years ago and had such a good time that I decided to switch clubs. Everyone was very welcoming – and it probably helped that my team won that tournament.”

Another reason there are more women playing polo is that there are more opportunities for entry, such as Poor’s Stage Hill Polo, Mark Tashjian’s Boston Polo Club in Rowley, and Myopia’s own Interscholastic Polo and Coaching League, plus longtime local coaches like Poor and Cissie Snow.

“Specifically, Stage Hill Polo is special in a way that they are teaching beginners,” says Contenta. “Anyone and everyone, no matter the age or experience, is welcome to give polo a shot.

“They gave me the opportunity to play at Myopia with some of the other players based out of their barn,” she says. “The support and sheer joy they displayed the whole season made it that much more enjoyable.”

Erica Katz, Myopia Polo Club manager, said she played collegiately at Skidmore College and was captain of the women’s team and president of the club. Having the opportunity to learn how to play polo while in school or via Myopia’s development programs is becoming more the norm rather than the exception for women players.

Myopia’s development programs, says Myopia member Jacek “Yaz” Grotnik, starting in middle school, are critical to growing the game. “More than 50 percent of our interscholastic team is made up of girls,” he says. “Both our assistant coaches are women who played on the Cornell University Polo Team.”

“Interscholastic polo is entry-level polo for kids generally from 7th to 12th grade, although we have had some younger participants,” says Grotnik. “Typically, kids with some riding experience join our program after trying polo at an introductory clinic or after seeing a game at Myopia.

“Our program focuses on four primary tenets – Horsemanship, Sportsmanship, Fair Play, and Teamwork,” he says. “Each of these combines to create a well-rounded player and teammate.”

And some of his best students, says Grotnik, are female.

“Women’s polo can be as fast and hard hitting as mixed or men’s polo,” he says. “It would be a mistake to take a women’s player for granted on the field. Most have a stronger riding discipline and use it to their advantage, as a large part of the game is the riding component.

Grotnik need look no further than his own daughter, Grace, to find a worthy example. Grace was captain of the Southern Methodist University polo squad this spring, leading her team to the NCAA tournament.

“The sport is very well suited for women. There is no difference in a man or women that makes it suited better for one over the other,” says Grace. “When it comes to horses, it doesn’t matter who you are. You’re just as equal as the next person out there.”