Hanging Out....

At the Polo Field...

I have lived in my town for more than 30 years and I have never been to a Polo match until yesterday...I wish I had gone sooner...it was such a fun event.  I learned a lot about the sport and I learned that it is not only for the rich and famous.  It's for regular folks like me.   Next time though I must remember to bring my own chair and I was very excited to learn you could bring wine and beer...It might have been my first event but it won't be my last...bring on the sunshine and horses...nothing like the smell of fresh horse...crap...

This girl was my favorite...she was so fast and she had no fear...Polo was described to me as being like soccer but with no goalie...they have to get the ball in the net with their mallet..and when they whack that ball they sometimes tear up the grass.  At half time all of the spectators go out on the field and stamp down the divots

Two teams...I don't know who was playing yesterday but I liked the white team..it had two girls on it...a man told me that most of the Polo Ponies were female and when I asked why he said "because they were willing to take more chances...now isn't that the truth.  By the way, although they are called Polo Ponies they are not pony's at all...full size horses but very fast and agile...

Ah, the famous butt braid..and do you know why they braid their tail..well if you do, you know more than I did. I thought it was just for show...you know to make them look pretty..not so.  They braid them so that when they swing that mallet it doesn't get tangled in the tail hair...now that makes sense to me...I love how strong and tight their little butts are...actually they are quite big...I have the big part, just not the tight part...very beautiful animals...and so well taken care of.

 Last but not to be left out is my "best buddy Liam...he just loves the horses and it was such a treat for him to move amongst them yesterday and to pat a few..The handlers were great about letting the kids get close and personal. As much as Liam loves the horses...the ice cream truck was a bigger lure.  That boy does like a great ice cream cone and as for me...I just love sound of the "bell".  Not much different than when I was a kid...course then you could get a drum stick for 50 cents...yesterday it cost me $3.00.  It was worth every penny to see the smile on his face.

We had such a great time.  My friend Mary joined us also and it was a wonderful experience for all of us...If you would like to know more about Polo, you can follow the link below...I'm hoping to get there one more time before the season is over. Sometimes we just need to get out there and take advantage of what our own towns have available...I'm so glad I finally investigated this wonderful, regal sport. 

Quick side-bar note...these photo's are not my best for sure.   I could not for the life of me get my camera to auto focus on the spurt mode yesterday...it was a lens that I had used before so I was worried that something had gone wrong with it...A Canon 70-300 L series.  All of these shot were focused manually and that is not easy when horses are flying by.  Called B&H today...come to find out...my card was to slow...well guess, what, I was shooting raw, large files and full frame 5D Mark111.   The guy told me it was like driving a Ferrari with volkswagon parts...who knew...so that is one disadvantage to shooting raw...or I could have put in my new 32 gig card super fast card.   On spurt I think jpeg would be fine...I was so frustrated...LOL   Lessons learned.  At least I wasn't on a safari...trying to shot run-a-way lions...now that really would have been a bummer.