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Polo Exhibition at Van Lennep , Friday March 21st, 2008.
By Dan Haro
The Skidmore Polo Team, and myself, would like to invite everyone to our one night only Polo Game using the Van Lennep Riding Center’s arena facility. The goal of the club is to promote and spread awareness of polo on campus as well as offer an evening sporting activity for the Skidmore students, faculty, and community to support and attend. Although the Skidmore Polo Club has a riding center of its own, this arena lacks the sufficient space and accessibility to host a large game that many Skidmore Students can view. The Van Lennep riding center has bleachers and sufficient viewing areas for students to comfortably be able to view a polo game.
When the Polo Team holds the Exhibition this spring, we hope to recreate the feeling of the large and intense games of the past and to show the strength, spirit, and support the polo team has for all of Skidmore and Saratoga to see.
I hope everyone can attend,
~Dan Haro
The 2007-2008 Season
by Megan Kiessling
The current officers’ goal for the club is that we bring it back to where it was before lack of funding and poor management led it to be in debt.
The club’s greatest struggle is to afford the increasing prices of board, and that hurdle alone takes up a lot of the clubs time and energy. Through fundraising, the club supplements its limited support from the school to be almost completely self-sufficient. One of the club’s goals is to maintain this self-sufficiency and find a more permanent facility that the club can operate out of long term.
Another very important goal that we have is to keep a reasonable, healthy number of ponies in the string. As of now we only have twelve, we’d like to increase that number to fifteen or sixteen. Having more ponies will enable more JV to participate and allow all Varsity members to ride for their entire practice. Also, it becomes easier for the club to host games; twelve is the bare minimum, and even then our coaches need to trailer in a horse for us to use for umpiring.
The club also strives to raise awareness about the sport. When the team played at its original location at Van Lennep, there were regular crowds of hundreds students that came to watch the game. We would love to see that kind of turnout and interest in the club once more. The games are fast, exciting, and a lot of fun to watch. A sport like that needs the crowd’s energy to give a true ‘home field advantage’.
The main goal of the club, though, is to provide an affordable way for college students to learn the King of Games, and be able to compete in on of the only Division I sports at Skidmore College. Being on the team has provided an unbelievable experience for everyone on it, whether the student is a senior on varsity or a new freshman on JV just learning how to hold a mallet. It makes Skidmore a better place to continue to offer a polo program that adds to the diversity and depth of a unique college experience.
~ Megan Kiessling
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