NEWS

Located just 33 miles southeast of Downtown Dallas in Kaufman, Texas, Legends Polo Club was founded in 2016 by Ignacio “Nacho” Estrada on an 34-acre venue with the aim of making polo affordable for students. “Our mission at Legends Polo Club is to keep the sport alive by teaching and training new players,” Estrada said. “We provide everything to make polo affordable for young players such as trained polo ponies, saddles, tack, chaps, helmets, and other equipment.”

The full-service polo equestrian center, which includes 140 stalls, trailer hookups for big events and a four-room farmhouse for rent, also hosts tournaments all year round, such as the Feldman Cup, National Arena Amateur Cup (NAAC) and the Southwestern Circuit Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, which will take place in November.

The arena is one of the most important parts of Legends Polo Club as it is the place where players are introduced to the game of polo for the first time. “The arena is where all new students learn to play polo due to the enclosed environment versus the outdoor fields,” Estrada said. “We want to ensure our students are strong riders before tackling polo on the field. We currently have a polo school taking place Tuesday and Thursday nights.”

In addition to a grass polo field and an outdoor arena, Legends Polo Club offers a roofed arena, racetrack, and a six-horse paneled walker and other amenities which make Legends Polo Club a unique hub of polo in Texas.

Led by Nacho Estrada and August Scherer, the polo school has had strong growth during the past five years. They host private lessons for $75.00 each or 10 for $500.00, and the average attendance during the week varies from eight to ten players each night. “We start off warming up with mallet work drills and then at the end we play a small chukker against each other to see what we have learned,” Estrada explained. “We had five polo school students enter in last weekend’s Texas Arena League (TAL) tournament to play in the C-Flight, a division created for beginners. We had enough for two Legends teams out of five C-Flight teams in total.”

“Compared to the 2020 Texas Arena League where we had to scramble to get two teams together at the last minute for the division to play at all, this year was a major success for TAL at Legends for the first two legs of the tournament. We had over 30 teams participating during both weekends. Games started at 1:00pm on Friday and the last game played until 8:30pm on Sunday.”

“A weekend full of polo makes for a lot of happy polo players!” Estrada exclaimed. “In 2020, Legends was voted “Best Host Club” of the Texas Arena League. It takes a strong team to make these events a success, from day-to-day chores here at the ranch, or organizing the event itself, we couldn’t do it without our team. We believe we are well equipped in that area!”

All photos courtesy of ©David Murrell.