278 POLO IN THE ARMY. [Chap. XII. 



for the week, and it also has a very bad effect on 

 regimental polo, because it deprives the regimental 

 polo club of the four best players and very likely all 

 the best ponies for a month or more. The other polo 

 playing officers may thus find their fun spoiled, and 

 may consider that the game is not worth the candle. 

 If a team goes up for the Regimental Tournament 

 and has perhaps one practice match on the previous 

 Saturday, the services of the four officers will not be 

 lost for long, expenses will not be heavy, and neither 

 regimental work nor regimental polo will suffer. 



Some years ago the Inspector-General of Cavalry 

 in India had just grounds of complaint against certain 

 regiments, because their chargers were by no means 

 up to the mark, although they possessed the best of 

 polo ponies. His impression was that some of these 

 officers paid more attention to the interests of polo 

 than to soldiering. Such cases, which are happily 

 very rare, would do more harm to polo in the Army 

 than almost anything else. 



The most successful polo regiments of late years 

 have been the 13th Hussars and the Inniskilling 

 Dragoons, neither of which ride expensive ponies. 

 The 13th Hussars have specially distinguished them- 

 selves, for they won the Cup in 1892, '94, and '95, 

 and were beaten in the final only by one goal in each 

 of the years 1896, '98, and '99. They had an ex- 

 ceptionally good team in 1897, but they scratched, 

 owing to their being in mourning. The 7th Hussars 

 won the Tournament in 1899, and bought four or five 

 high-priced ponies just before the Tournament, in 

 order to win. They had only recently come home 

 from India, and had not had the opportunity of getting 



