TRAINING OF PONIES IN INDIA. 239 



by playing it out. It may even happen that a match 

 may be won by subsidiaries, without any goal being 

 scored by either side. Surely this is not polo ? 



NECESSITY FOR THE BETTER TRAINING OF PONIES 



IN INDIA. 



The bad training of the ponies and bad riding of the 

 players is due to the fact that polo is a much more 

 general game than in England. Very many men who 

 go out to the East without ever having been on a 

 horse, or with only very elementary ideas about equita- 

 tion, immediately start, like good sportsmen as they 

 are, to learn to ride by playing polo. Frequently, not 

 being able to buy a trained pony, they begin on one 

 which knows as little of the game as they do themselves. 

 1 know several grounds in India where no one dreams 

 of taking the trouble even to break their ponies to 

 stick and ball before putting them into a game ; nor do 

 they even think of making their new purchases in the 

 slightest degree handy before playing them. If they 

 would take the trouble even to bit their ponies properly 

 and to teach them to stop and turn, and to change 

 their legs, they would make their games of polo a 

 pleasanter and safer amusement for themselves and 

 their friends. 



In England, as a rule, polo is played by fairly 

 rich men, who, if they are bad horsemen, can afford 

 the luxury of a trained pony which will not need 

 much riding. Those who have not sufficient money 

 to buy a really good one, usually content themselves 

 with an animal which knows the game, but which 

 is perhaps a bit of a screw, or rather troubled with 

 the slows. Owing to the absence, as a rule, of special 



