Playing outdoors on grass, polo is a summer sport with the season starting in April and ending in September. However, for those who’d rather not wait seven agonosing months to get their fix, there’s a solution – arena polo.
Arena polo allows players to play in the off-season, which provides a range of amazing benefits for players and their horses.
In this blog we’ll explain what arena polo is, how it differs from the standard game and why it can benefit players and ensure they’re ready and raring to go once the regular summer season starts.
Arena Polo In Winter
With rock hard pitches, chilly winds and low temperatures, winter doesn’t exactly provide ideal conditions for playing polo! However, if you’re a true polo aficionado and you’d rather not wait until the season starts in April, there’s a way you can stay active and continue to hone your skills in the off-season.
Arena polo, which takes places indoors where players are shielded from the harsh winter elements, allows you to continue participating in your favourite pastime long after the regular season has ended.
The increasing popularity of arena polo means that for many, what was once a predominantly summer affair has been transformed into something that can be enjoyed year-round.
Benefits Of Winter Polo
As well as the obvious advantage of allowing you to keep playing polo during the off-season, there are various additional benefits to playing the game indoors. These include:
Improve Skills:
While winter often brings down the shutters on many outdoor sports, arena polo ensures you can continue to get better in winter, without the worry of your skills declining.
In fact, the smaller pitches and different manoeuvres add a whole new element to your game, which can then be transferred to the outdoor field once the regular season resumes.
Maintains Horses Condition:
Polo horses are the unsung heroes of the sport. Some of them are worth tens of thousands of pounds, if not more. So as well as being a companion on and off the field, these majestic animals are also a huge investment that need to be well-maintained.
During the winter, many horses will spend less time exercising, which can see their physical conditioning decline until the polo season starts again. But if you’re putting your horse through its paces during winter, this will help maintain their fitness and agility so that they’re in peak condition when they take to the field when the regular season begins.
Adaptability In Riding:
Winter arena polo introduces both horses and players to a unique riding experience. The smaller, enclosed pitch and potentially different footing conditions will pose a whole new set of challenges for you and your animal, enhancing your skill set and equipping you with the adaptability that can prove a real asset in polo playing.
Improves Strategic Thinking:
Polo is as much a mental game as it is physical, with strategy playing a huge role in the outcome of a match. When you take to an indoor field, one of the first thins you’ll notice is the dynamics of the match are completely different.
The smaller pitch and often faster pace of the game means you’ll need to adjust to the different conditions accordingly. This means different shots and manoeuvres, as well as adjusted tactics tailored to suit the arena-based game.
This can help improve your versatility as a player, ensuring you and your horse are ready for anything the game can throw at you!
Sustaining Passion Year-Round:
If you’re passionate about polo and can’t bear to miss out on playing for over six months which, let’s face it, is quite a long time, then playing indoors is the obvious solution.
By helping you hone your skills, you can maintain your unwavering passion for the sport, ensuring you’re ready and raring to go with a bucket load of new skills in your toolbox once the summer season begins.
So those are the main benefits of arena polo. As you can see, there are many advantages to playing indoors during the colder months. As well as improving your skills and maintaining your horse’s condition, you can also adapt to different styles of riding and learn new strategies which can improve your game immensely, whether playing indoors or outdoors.