Nearly all polo ponies are Western bred, and have broncho blood in them. A broncho is unreliable at best. For a thousand times he may serve you perfectly, and then, when you least expect such a thing, for no apparent reason, he may prove utterly unreliable.
Ponies for expert players must have lots of speed and good blood in them, but it is necessary that they should be tough and hard to injure.
As for the game of polo, there is no other sport in which the nervous force, cool decision and quick judgment of man are coupled to such an extent with the natural instincts of the horse.
Polo, properly played by man, with ponies thoroughly trained and keyed up to the highest tension, is a game which possesses just danger enough to make it attractive to men of nerve. It requires a cool head, quick eye, infinite perseverance and marvelous horsemanship.
The chief qualifications of an expert polo player are the ability to measure distance while riding at top speed, the knowledge when and where to race, and the judgment and skill to play a waiting game at times. The best player should be a past master of all the strategies and tactics of a cavalry horseman.
Besides this, it requires courage. A player must have the kind of nerve that would face unflinchingly a hand-to-hand struggle for life on the battlefield.
The friends of Frank and Jack hastened to congratulate them, with the exception of Browning and Hodge. The former was too lazy to exert himself so much, and the latter was in the “dumps,” as the sulky look on his face plainly indicated.
“Gol darned if I ever saw sich a crummy lookin’ hoss as that what could git araound so humpin’ lively!” declared Ephraim Gallup.
“Yaw, dut bony peen lifely as a pedpugs,” nodded Hans. “Vot vould you take for him uf you vant to bought him, Vrankie?”
“Merry, me b’y,” put in the Irish lad, “it’s a lulu ye are, an’ Diamond is a p’ache; but it’s thot spalpane Finton ye want to be lookin’ afther roight sharrup, fer Oi saw him swat at yez.”