Darrell Schwetz remembers his first polo mallet. “It was given to me by Owen O’Hanlon,” he said. “I was 8-years-old, and it meant a lot at the time.” Darrell’s introduction to horses came through Dr Billy Linfoot at Royal Palm Polo Club. But summers at Culver Military Academy took his horsemanship to another level.

Darrell was part of the Rough Riders who were renowned for their dangerous stunt exhibitions and in 2009 Darrell was inducted into the Culver Acadamies Horemanship Hall of Fame. “The time I spent at Culver taught me a lot,” said Darrell. “And helped my polo too.”

Darrell lived close to Royal Palm and was on the victor’s podium of the club’s leading tournament the $100,000 USPA Gold Cup Final in 1982 by playing as substitute for John T Oxley. “It was an honor to be chosen to play his horses,” Darrell said.

Raised to two goals, Darrell turned professional and added more memorable wins to his career including the Butler Handicap in Chicago and The International Cup as a five-goal player.

Darrell joined the umpire program in 2004, traveling to Lahore Polo Club in 2005 as an umpire as well as being the first US umpire to visit Argentina in the umpire exchange program.

“I was lucky to have had a great career playing polo,” Darrell said. “And being a professional umpire has given me the chance to continue with polo. It’s a challenging job but it’s become easier over the years, with the depth of organization that is in place with Umpires LLC and the strength of the team of umpires that are now in place.”