When was polo first played in America?

The first remembered American match was staged in 1876 — the year of the first U.S. centennial — when James Gordon Bennett Jr., who had seen the game in England, organized an indoor match at Dickel's Riding Academy in New York. The Westchester Polo Club and the Newport Polo Club both date themselves to that summer.

What is Prince Harry's polo handicap?

Prince Harry carries a one-goal handicap — the low-goal rating of a patron, the amateur player whose presence draws the crowd while professionals carry the play.

Sentebale — Sesotho for 'forget-me-not' — was founded in 2006 by Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho for children in Lesotho and later Botswana whose lives were affected by poverty and HIV, in memory of the mothers each had lost. Its polo cup was the charity's flagship fundraiser. In March 2025, Harry and Prince Seeiso resigned as patrons, and Sentebale has since ended polo as a fundraising vehicle.

What is the difference between Polo Ralph Lauren and U.S. Polo Assn.?

Polo Ralph Lauren is Ralph Lauren's fashion label, launched with neckwear in 1967; Lauren owns the fashion mark. U.S. Polo Assn. is the apparel brand of the United States Polo Association, founded in 1890; the Association owns the sport's name. The two have spent years in court over the rider-and-mallet imagery and the word 'polo.'

What is a patron in polo?

The patron is the amateur — usually a low-goal player — who funds the team, the string of ponies, and the afternoon. The handicap system lets a low-goal patron ride alongside professionals, with the team starting ahead on the scoreboard to level the contest.

250 YEARS OF AMERICA: POLO — THE FIELD, THE PATRON, AND THE SHIRT

Q: Where is high-goal polo played in the United States?

Winter belongs to Florida: the USPA National Polo Center in Wellington — the former International Polo Club Palm Beach, acquired by the USPA in 2022 — runs the high-goal game from roughly January into April. Summer belongs to the Northeast and the Pacific: Greenwich Polo Club in Connecticut, Newport International Polo in Rhode Island, plus Saratoga, Bridgehampton, Santa Barbara, and Oak Brook.

Staff Reports, LIKE® Magazine · Photographs by Michael de la Force · Sports · October 1, 2026

America at two hundred and fifty is older than the game it hosts.

Polo did not arrive with the founders. The modern game had already been codified by British officers in India and given laws at Hurlingham in 1874. James Gordon Bennett Jr. saw it in England and brought mallets, a ball, and a set of rules home. In 1876, the year of the first centennial, he staged what is remembered as the first American match, indoors at Dickel's Riding Academy in New York. The Westchester Polo Club and the Newport Polo Club both date themselves to that summer. A republic celebrating a hundred years acquired a cavalry game. At the two hundred and fiftieth year the lawn is still the point. The shirt is a separate invention.

The First American Match

The great lawn of the next generation was Meadow Brook, on Long Island. Clubs followed in New Jersey, outside Philadelphia, in Aiken, and in the horse country of Virginia. The United States Polo Association was founded in 1890 to keep handicaps, rules, and the national claim. International play arrived with the Westchester Cup against England. Tommy Hitchcock Jr., a ten-goal player and a flier in both world wars, became the American name of that era. The handicap system, still in use, lets a low-goal patron ride with professionals and start the match ahead on the scoreboard. The Depression and the Second World War thinned the clubs. Meadow Brook's stands did not survive as the center of the game. What returned was smaller, then richer. Patrons paid for the string. Argentine professionals, trained on more ponies and more matches than any American amateur, took the high-goal positions.

The Charity Circuit: Harry and Nacho

In this photograph Number 1, in white, is Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. The jersey and the saddle cloth read Sentebale. Number 2, in black, is Ignacio “Nacho” Figueras. They are not an accident of a draw. They are the public pair this sport has used when it wants a cause and a face in the same chukker.

Harry was born in 1984, the younger son of Charles and Diana. Polo was his father's game and his brother's. The lawn was Cirencester, Beaufort, and the charity cups, not a professional club in Palermo. He carries a one-goal handicap — the low-goal rating of a patron, the man who brings the crowd and still takes a mallet. He is not booked as a ten. In 2006 he and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho founded Sentebale, from the Sesotho for “forget-me-not,” for children in Lesotho and later Botswana whose lives had been cut by poverty and HIV, and in memory of the mothers each had lost. The cup became the charity's flagship. In 2012, at a Sentebale match in Brazil, he was first off his horse when a fellow player, Bash Kazi, was thrown and knocked out. A Red Cross writer recalled Harry rolling him onto his side — the recovery position — and Kazi later called him “a fabulous person” and “such a gentleman.” In England he rode for charities his mother had cared about, Centrepoint among them, and missed the sort of open goal any patron misses. He has also come off. After he left the working roster of the royal family he did not leave the game. The cups moved with him: Greenwich in Connecticut, Aspen Valley in Colorado, the Sentebale ISPS Handa card. In August 2022 his Sentebale side won that Aspen cup.

Figueras was born in Buenos Aires in 1977 and came up through the Argentine clubs. He made his name on the American high-goal circuit, long associated with Black Watch. He is not the highest handicap in the world. Adolfo Cambiaso still holds that sentence. Nacho became the player a camera could love without lying about the sport. He and Harry met on the charity circuit, not in a fitting room. The professional makes the run. The patron keeps the charity on the jersey. In this frame Harry is on the chestnut, mallet down, white boots, number 1. Nacho is a length behind, mallet up, number 2, the darker horse already turning. Yellow umbrellas on the rail. No scoreboard. The point of the afternoon is the pairing.

The Shirt

The shirt the public means by polo is younger than the club and older than this match. Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx in 1939. He took the name Lauren before the public knew him. In 1967 he was selling ties out of a drawer in the Empire State Building, wider than the ties then in the shops, and he called the line Polo. The word was the argument. It suggested a lawn, a horse, and a man who already belonged. He had not joined the club. The tie was the membership. By the early 1970s the mallet player was on the shirt. Polo Ralph Lauren grew from neckwear into shirts, suits, a women's line, and a fragrance, Polo, in 1978. The design idea was an American reading of English country clothes, not the Argentine high-goal game. Figueras came decades later and made the advertisement true enough to stand. Harry, in Sentebale white, belongs to the charity side of the same photograph, not to the payroll of the shirt.

A second house sells a similar picture. U.S. Polo Assn. is the apparel mark of the Association founded in 1890. The two have spent years in court over a rider, a mallet, and the word polo. Lauren owns a fashion mark. The Association owns the sport's name. The lawn does not wear either logo as a rule. College polo, women's polo, and arena polo, played indoors on a smaller field, carried the game past the private lawn. Charity cups put a patron beside a professional and called a crowd that had never held a mallet.

Where the Game Is Played

The season now is two climates. Winter belongs to Florida. The USPA National Polo Center in Wellington — the former International Polo Club Palm Beach, acquired by the USPA in 2022 — runs the high-goal game from roughly January into April. Summer belongs to the Northeast and the Pacific. Greenwich Polo Club, on North Street, plays June into September and has hosted Sentebale. Newport International Polo, on Linden Lane in Portsmouth, claims the oldest American club and opens its Saturday series in June. Saratoga, Bridgehampton, Santa Barbara, and Oak Brook keep their own cards.

Newport's hospitality is a sponsor list as much as a sport. Veuve Clicquot pours at the matches and keeps a Terrasse on the Veuve Clicquot Cup weekend. TD Bank is the banking partner, with its name on the pavilion. Foxwoods dresses the Cabana Club. Turkish Airlines has presented the finals. Rolex is the watch of the international high-goal game more than a Newport title line. It belongs in the same sentence as the champagne.

The Dress Code and the Kit

Watching is a dress code that pretends not to be one. In a northern summer the rail wears linen, a jacket if the wind is off the water, a hat with a brim, and shoes that can survive a divot. White is common and not required. A necktie is a Greenwich habit more than a rule. At halftime the crowd is waved onto the turf to tread the clods back. That is the one moment the lawn belongs to the spectators. The right of way belongs to the line of the ball.

The kit does not change with the season. White breeches in Wellington in January and at Newport in July. Brown boots, a knee guard, a helmet, a jersey in the team color. Harry's white and Nacho's black are jersey colors, not a summer uniform. Boots, if a player waits for them, are Casa Fagliano of Buenos Aires. Saddles are Argentine, built for a short seat and a quick change. Hermès can sell a spectator a saddle. It is rarely the one on the string. Mallets are cane, still cut in Argentina. Helmets have to meet the Association's standard: Champion, GPA, and Charles Owen are the marks most often on the crown. Whites and jerseys come from the club shop or from La Martina, the Argentine house founded in 1985. Ralph Lauren cuts the idea of the afternoon. He does not cut the boot.

The Pony

The pony is the expensive half of the game, and the famous names are players who breed as much as men who only train. Adolfo Cambiaso's La Dolfina string is the modern standard: mares selected, tried at speed, and sold or kept for his own team. The Pieres family, the Heguys, and the Novillo Astradas have done the same work in Argentina for more than one generation. A polo pony is usually a Thoroughbred cross, smaller than a racehorse, trained to stop, turn, and take the rider to the ball without being steered like a show horse. In the United States the winter string is often Argentine-bred and American-campaigned. Julian Hipwood, the English ten-goal player who settled into the American game, has been one of the men patrons trust with a barn. The groom who rides the pony six days a week is rarely on the program. The crowd applauds the mallet. The match was decided in the barn.

At two hundred and fifty years, the republic is older than the sport it hosts, and the sport has been American long enough to have a centennial of its own. The lawn does not seem to mind. Number 1 waits for the throw-in. Number 2 is already in the frame.

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