During September, 20 girls visited Sussex Polo Club in Rowfant, to see if they wanted to take up the sport of polo. With the huge interest shown, it was necessary to take different girls each week and there was a vast range of riding abilities represented, from complete beginner to regular riders, some who had played polo before. 

Our coach was Stuart Frift who runs the company Poloinc and is a coach at Sussex. He made us very welcome and allocated the seven horses according to our ability. For those who already ride, it was a real shock to hold the reins in such a weird way and   steer the horses as if you are using a joystick on a computer game! Half of each lesson was spent on short stick work in which we learnt the different strokes whilst standing on the ground, and the other on horseback, using our body weight to tell the horse whether we wanted to speed up or slow down and practicing turning the horses around. For those who went twice, the second time sticks were issued for us to attempt to use whilst on horseback – not as easy as it looks!

The majority of the girls, and some who have not been yet, are very keen to continue with the sport after half term and we aim to be travelling to Hickstead most Friday  evenings to use their arena to build up skills and experience in order to form teams to compete against other schools next year.
The school is intending to join SUPA (The Schools and University Polo Association) and will obtain a wooden horse for the girls practice sessions and competition is on the horizon.