The Louisville Polo Club, the oldest polo club in Kentucky, hosted Twilight Polo this past Thursday at Waterfront Park to kick off their season with a polo match along with tailgating, music, food trucks, and wine and beer tastings.
What were doing is were taking a little bit of indoor and outdoor polo, and were putting it together into an exhibition style match said Will Boland of the Louisville Polo Club.
Besides kicking off the polo season, Boland hopes that by bringing polo to the heart of urban Louisville, more people will become aware and interested in the sport. Were trying to get it out of the private countryside on peoples farms and more in the city where people can see that theres polo going on. I like having it at the Waterfront because Im trying to tie horse-equestrian activity into maybe the bourbon row or the downtown Louisville theme, and I think it shows the strong diversity of Louisville that we have stuff like this going on.
Polos roots in Louisville go back years with the many horse trainers and established thoroughbred racing families in the area. Bolands father, Jim Boland, grew up around such families, many of them living in Seneca Park where polo was first played in Louisville. It was kind of a park sport when Louisville was more in its heyday and people actually rode their horses through the parks.
Louisville Polo has also drawn new participants. Whats unique about todays group is that all of these people are all new people into polo that weve gotten in over the years. So we have a whole new group of people and they come from various socio economic backgrounds. Some people are country farmers that have horses, and some people are trust-fund babies, so you get the range. The thing about polo is its a common arena where you get that diversity in class. You have you know a Mexican laborer whos a good horseman versus a billionaire whos out there on his Sunday afternoon. And, as long as they all have polo in common, its a common-ground, because everyones there for the love of the horses and the sport.