Explore the History of One of the Most Loved Sports: Polo

Polo, game played on horseback between two teams, four participants with long and flexible handles to push a wooden ball through a field of grass and between two goal posts. It is the oldest equestrian sport.
A game of origin of Central Asia, the pole was played for the first time in Persia (Iran) in the dates that were given from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD. Polo was the beginning of a training game for cavalry units, usually the king's guard or other elite troops. For members of the warrior tribes, who played with up to 100 per side, it was a miniature battle.
Over time, polo has become a national sport and has been played extensively by the nobility. Women and men play in the game, as indicated by references to the queen and her ladies who engaged with King Khosrow II Parviz and his courtiers in the sixth century AD.
From Persia, the game spread to Arabia, then to Tibet, a China and a Japan. In China (910), the death of a favored relative in a game caused Emperor A-pao-chi to order the beheading of all surviving players.
Polo was introduced into India by the Muslim conquerors in the thirteenth century; However, although the game had been described in Voyages to Persia (1613) by Sir Anthony Sherley, the first Europeans in the game were the British tea planters in Assam, who formed the first European polo club in 1859 in Silchar. The polo club of Calcutta was formed in the early 1860s. The polo spread quickly after a captain in the tenth Hussar stationed in India saw a match in early 1866 and immediately formed a team from among his companions. Officials Before the end of the year, informal parties were held between units of British cavalry stationed in India. In 1869, a round of challenges was held between the 10 horses and the 9 spearmen in England. Currently, there were eight men on one side and almost no rules. Polo grew rapidly in England and matches in Richmond Park and Hurlingham attracted more than 10,000 spectators in 1875. After it went to the military, the sport of polo is still popular with them, but it also extends to universities and Popular with nobility and royalty.
In 1876, sportsman and newspaper editor James Gordon Bennett saw his first polo game and introduced it to the United States. Later that year, it will be played in informal games in New York and in 1877 at the Jerome Park racecourse in Westchester County, New York, where the Westchester Polo Club was founded in the last year. In 1881, the Meadow Brook Club was formed on Long Island, New York, by such outstanding players as Thomas Hitchcock, Sr., August Belmont and Benjamin Nicoll. The size of the team was reduced to five and then, in 1881 in the United States and in 1883 in England, a four, the current number. Although the rules of the Hurlingham Club of England (which was founded in 1886) were used for the first time in the United States, in 1888 a system of players with disabilities was designed to match play in tournaments. The Polo Association (later, the Polo Association of the United States) was founded in 1890 and standardized the rules. The sport spread throughout the country, although the game was maintained for a long time by the rich expenses of acquisition and maintenance of a pole establishment. Outside the United States, the governing body of the game is the Hurlingham Polo Association, which maintains relationships with many national agencies.
By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://www.britannica.com/sports/polo