NEWS

Article courtesy of Lucienne Bacon.

In the fall of 2023, Georgetown University Polo Club (Washington, D.C.) reinstated its polo team and joined the USPA’s intercollegiate/interscholastic (I/I) ranks. Calling on the sport’s history at the school and dedication of students, coaches and the broader polo community, the program has evolved tremendously over the past season.

Polo has been at Georgetown since 1952. Recently discovered in the university’s library archives are yearbooks and match posters that show that the decades of the 60s and 70s were a competitive time for the Hoyas. The 1966-1967 team brought together experienced players from around the country and world, including Argentina, Iran and Mexico. Traveling up and down the East Coast, they competed against the likes of Cornell University (Ithaca, New York), Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut), and the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Virginia). This parallels in many ways the state of Hoya polo today, as the team has sourced players from the heart of Kentucky to the Philippines, and this past season faced-off against some of the very same opponents.

It is likely that the club went dormant for some time due to a lack of adequate membership, although it has nearly always been possible to find a polo playing student on campus during any given school year. Just before the pandemic, there were a handful of avocational players who, in their free time, would borrow friends' cars and travel to nearby barns in Virginia or Maryland. Informal matches were occasionally hosted with George Washington University (Washington, D.C.).

Things began to change when current club President Alfonso Pla Zobel de Ayala was introduced to Gustavo Fraga-Errecart at the end of 2022. Fraga-Errecart grew up playing in Argentina and saw his son Patricio Fraga-Errecart rise through the ranks of I/I polo in Maryland. He then founded and began directing the College Polo Tour, a student-exchange program that organizes travel to the sport’s most popular locations around the world for college-aged players. Fraga-Errecart offered to assist Pla Zobel de Ayala with building the club into a fully functional intercollegiate team.

Joined by fellow students Ashley Parekh, Ford Middendorf and Muhammad Bin Talal, Pla Zobel de Ayala created aboard to first officiate the club within the school, and then went on to recruit eight students from a variety of horseback riding and polo backgrounds at the start of the 2023 season. During this time, they registered with the USPA and Fraga-Errecart put together a match schedule that would give the Hoyas the opportunity to compete across the East Coast and eventually at the Southeastern Divisional II Men’s Regional. By December, Georgetown University Club Polo was the largest it had been in program history.

Reflecting on the process, Alfonso Pla Zobel de Ayala shared, “We started from scratch with this club in the fall and were able to find a group of players, beginners and advanced, who were eager to practice and travel for matches. Fortunately, the support of the USPA, U.S. Polo Assn. and our university has made it possible for us to create a comprehensive program that can offer this. Our aim is to use this momentum to guarantee that the club is sustainable and can keep growing.”

Throughout the 2023-2024 season, Georgetown has had the opportunity to work with Wayne and Kate Briere of Seneca Polo Club (Poolesville, Maryland) and Dorie Burner of Battlefield Park Polo Club (Gainesville, Virginia) to host weekly practices. Additional assistance through clinics has come from Amir Pirasteh of Natania Polo Club, Annie Rogers, Connor Deal and Patricio-Fraga Errecart.

The extent and variety of this support has allowed the team to create a robust program that can support both new and experienced players. As they traveled from Harvard to Cornell, University of Virginia to Garrison Forest (Owings Mills, Virginia), players who had been introduced to polo in August had the opportunity to participate in their first intercollegiate match, while those who had years of experience with field polo became better arena players.

For several Hoyas, a highlight of their season was a trip to Pilar, Argentina, as participants in the third College Polo Tour. Alongside eighteen other university students, Fraga-Errecart and Soledad Secchi organized play at La Fija Polo Club, toured the facilities of La H Polo Club and watched one of the semifinal matches of the Argentine Open. Additionally, they were introduced to several high-goal players; among them Guillermo “Sapo” Caset, Bartolomé “Lolo” Castagnola, and Cruz and Eduardo “Ruso” Heguy, as well as polo photographer Pablo Ramirez. The trip was an opportunity for Georgetown to connect with other interscholastic players and turn its local polo network into something global.

Back in the U.S., the men’s team (Ford Middendorf, Hamilton “Max” Gundlach, Benedikt Jaenecke, Muhammad Bin Talal, Alfonso Pla Zobel de Ayala) traveled to the University of Virginia to participate in the Southeastern Division II Men’s Regional. Defeating Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Virginia) with a final score of 21-5, they clinched their spot to compete in the 2024 Division II Men’s National Intercollegiate Championship, hosted by Central Coast Polo Club in Los Osos, California.

Despite losing to Cornell in the finale, an admirable win against Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas) in the semifinals and the title of Reserve National Champion represents a historic victory for the club and the first time it has presented itself on a national stage. At the end of the week, Gundlach was named a Division II Men’s National Intercollegiate All-Star and Middendorf received the Clyde C. Waddell Jr. Memorial Sportsmanship Award.

In seven months, the team has evolved from reinstatement at Georgetown and the USPA to being competitive and accomplished.

As the Hoyas prepare for the season ahead, it is not without immense gratitude for the support that has brought them to this point. The club has become a space where passion for the sport of polo and a commitment to improvement is bringing students together as athletes and friends. From practices in Virginia and Maryland, to matches that take them across the country and world, the program’s existence and success is a testament to the opportunities within I/I polo.

Georgetown University Club Polo would like to thank the USPA and U.S. Polo Assn. for their continued support, as well as team sponsors, Casablanca Polo, College Polo Tour, George Wood Mallets, J&M Mallets, La Hoya, PoloUP, Polo+10, Takito Sotogrande, and the Pla Zobel de Ayala, Bacon, Bin Talal, Fraga-Errecart, Dabbous and Middendorf families.