The short answer: Join your national polo association (the USPA in the United States), message the club on Instagram or text the manager instead of relying on email, ask for a specific day, and expect to rent a horse and pay per chukker or per lesson. Bring your own helmet, boots, gloves, and knee guards. Be honest about your level, and ask who will match you with a horse. I contacted clubs in more than 35 states this way on my tour of every polo club in America.
Before you go
Join the USPA. I visited clubs as a playing member. Clubs want to know you're part of the system and that you've played before.
Know your level, and say it plainly. A club that knows you're a low-goal amateur can give you the right horse and the right chukker. A club that thinks you're better than you are can get you hurt.
Check the season. Many of the "no" answers I got were really "not now." Use my polo season calendar.
How to reach a club
I started every visit with a short email. Here's the core of what I sent:
I'm a playing USPA member and I just finished the winter season at Sarasota Polo Club. I'd love to pick up a chukker, stick and ball, or even just watch while I'm in town around [date]. What's the best way to visit your club?
Then I followed up everywhere else, because email alone rarely worked.
Instagram first. Clubs were often more active on Instagram than on Facebook or email. Many post their game schedules there and nowhere else.
Text the manager. If a phone number is listed, a short text often got an answer when a voicemail didn't.
Call the day before. One New York club told me plainly: call the day before. Plans change daily with the weather and the horses.
Accept a no gracefully. Some clubs are private, some are a family's farm, and some are closed to the public. A polite no today can be a yes next season.
Know what kind of club it is
Public and semi-public clubs have lessons, rental horses, and regular chukkers. These are your best bets.
Private clubs may let you watch, if anything. Respect it.
Family clubs are often a group of friends sharing a field. Lovely to visit, rarely set up for guests.
College clubs run on the school calendar and usually stop for the summer. Some disband entirely: one university team I contacted had shut down.
Arena or grass? Arena polo needs fewer horses, often runs at night, and is a great way in. I played arena polo under the lights in Austin.
What it costs
On my tour, a chukker cost anywhere from $30 at Poway Polo Club in San Diego to $500 at La Herradura in California's Santa Ynez Valley. Stick and ball sessions ran from $80 for an hour and a half in Wisconsin to $200 outside Chicago. Several clubs comped me, which I never expected. All of the real numbers are in how much it costs to play polo.
The horse is everything
Ask who's matching you. The best visits I had were at clubs where someone thought carefully about which horse fit which rider.
Expect personalities. In New Mexico I rode a horse for two chukkers who was smooth and very fast and very hard to stop. In Austin, horses reared up under me and I stayed on. Know your emergency stop before you need it.
Be wary of unsafe horses. Memo Gracida, one of the best players in history, warned me to be careful of places that don't have safe horses. If a club's horses look unfit or out of control, it's fine to watch instead.
Buying? Ask about sedation. A player in Oregon warned me that some sellers sedate a horse before a trial ride. Ask directly, and try the horse more than once.
Check your own tack. Trust, but verify. My closest call of the entire tour came from a loose girth, and I'll tell that story another time. Check your girth yourself before you get on, every time.
Be a good guest
Bring something. A coffee for the instructor, a thank-you, an offer to help. On my tour, every club I visited was offered a free strategy consultation from my agency, Unrth.
Help where you can. At one Maryland club, I helped a player named Parker get back on her horse and then played alongside her. That felt amazing.
Share the club. Tag them, post about them, recommend them. Poway Polo Club returned the favor by writing about my visit in their newsletter.
Pace yourself. Polo travel is exhausting. I learned that one the hard way, and wrote about it in The Dip.
For club-by-club notes, start with what I learned trying to visit every polo club in America.
Every step above is a text thread, a phone call, and a prayer. PoloFlow is the app I'm building to turn it into a few taps. Polo, wherever you are. Join the waitlist at poloflow.com.
