How polo players practise.

The schools and clubs below each describe a slightly different route, and most follow a similar order: learn the swing where a mistake costs nothing, then add a moving pony, then add other players. This page reports how they do it. Your own club will have its own structure, and drills should be run by an instructor.

The wooden horse and the hitting cage

A US patent (US5085425, "Workout horse") describes the common set-up: a static, usually wooden, replica horse stands in the centre of a dish-shaped surface so that balls roll back toward the player after each hit. The patent itself proposes a powered version that imitates a pony's canter.

Yale's polo club is one long-running example. The Yale Alumni Magazine reported in 2015 that beginners start in the hitting cage in Payne Whitney Gymnasium, where players have swung from a wooden horse since the gym opened in 1932, before they ride at the club's indoor arena in Bethany, Connecticut. Club alumni adviser Liz Brayboy made the point that hitting the wooden horse's leg hard does it no harm, while doing the same to a real pony is a problem, which is part of why beginners learn there first.

The wooden horse is also a research tool: Gretchen Oliver and colleagues at Auburn University recorded professionals hitting offside forehands from one for their 2018 swing study (see the swing). The equipment itself is covered on practice gear.

A beginner progression: Houston Polo Club

Horse Nation's March 2015 account of Houston Polo Club's beginner clinic describes one school's full sequence. Riding work was taught by Senior Polo and Riding Instructor Barlee Flanders and hitting by Senior Polo Instructor Mark Prinsloo. The progression ran:

1. Swings on foot.
2. Swings on a welded dummy horse.
3. Hitting balls from the dummy horse, with the instructor correcting head position.
4. Into the arena on a pony.
5. Hitting at the walk through cones about 25 feet away.

A later Horse Nation report (May 2015) from the same school adds two steps: beginners first leaned over at the halt, walk and trot with the mallet head flat on the ground to learn their distance from the ball, then practised half swings at those paces. A relay drill of hitting between goal posts took riders on to tapping the ball forward at a slow trot.

Stick and ball

Global Polo (March 2024, with Lily Brennan) describes it as warming up the pony and then hitting around a practice field or arena at less than full strength, to build muscle memory and finesse. It advises practising nearside forehands and backhands on both sides, not only the offside forehand (see nearside shots).

Edinburgh University Polo Club, whose curriculum is set by HPA-qualified instructor James Douglas, gives its novices a weekly lesson, a separate stick and ball session, and practice chukkas.

Drills named by coaches

Our research found only a few drills named in writing by a coach or school:

• Tim Ward, HPA Club Coach (POLO+10, 2014): riding in a line at varied speeds; passing the ball down the line; riding without stirrups; accelerating up a track and stopping dead, or stopping at intervals along it; backing two steps, then turning and accelerating back; and a "clock" drill in which riders accelerate toward numbers the coach calls out.
• Houston Polo Club: the goal-post relay and the walk-through-cones exercise described above.

Most of Ward's drills are riding drills rather than hitting drills, built around the five riding skills he lists: the half seat and the four movements on riding one-handed.

Practice chukkas

The clubs in our sources run practice chukkas in different ways:

• Melbourne City Polo Club (Wednesday chukkas, 2022/23 season): young-horse chukkas that give green horses a gentle introduction, fast chukkas for players of about 4 goals and above, and slow chukkas for lower-level players, in which professionals on the field keep play moving and answer questions.
• Edinburgh University Polo Club: weekly practice chukkas as the step after lessons and stick and ball.
• Singapore Polo Club (lesson rules, November 2019): instructional chukkas are limited to 30 minutes, much of it at the walk so the instructor can explain and correct.

How one club separates its lessons

Singapore Polo Club's 2019 lesson rules show how many separate pieces a club may teach. It lists "polo riding" lessons in an arena, generally without mallets; swing and penalty lessons; cage lessons; formation-riding lessons for groups of four to eight; and semi-private lessons on riding off, hooking, "taking the man", passing and set plays. The last group is covered on riding off and hooking and team play.