POLO 51 



and are a reasonably good horseman, you will 

 not find polo a difficult game to learn up to a 

 certain point. After that all depends on natural 

 aptitude and opportunities for practice, and the 

 pains and time you give to it. Still the diffi- 

 culty remains that you cannot afford to learn 

 polo off the back of a young pony. There are 

 two ways : either to buy a useful old pony, or 

 to learn from the back of a wooden horse as 

 suggested in my longer treatise on the game,^ 

 and better still by combining both. In this 

 way you will gradually gain a mastery ov^er the 

 ball, and it is in control of the ball that the 

 whole secret of polo lies. 



Certain leading errors you should avoid. 

 First try to hit the ball full and clear, getting 

 neither under it so that you break the force of 

 your blow by hitting the ground, nor over it so 

 as to tip the ball as well. Both are common 

 faults, the latter being the worse of the two. 

 My late friend, Mr. W. J. Dryborough, had a 

 peculiarly clean, sharp stroke, and the ball went 

 away from his back-handed stroke with a shoot 

 on it I have never seen in any other player. 

 To borrow a term from the musketry range, his 

 stroke had a ''straight trajectory." If you 

 watch Mr. Buckmaster or Captain McLaren, 

 confessedly two of the finest polo players of 

 ^ " Game of Polo." 



