Horse polo is a unique sport in that it is often played with teams of varying skill levels using a handicap system. The only other major sport that uses a handicap system even at its highest levels is Golf.
The handicap system was created in 1890 as a way to ensure teams were as fair as possible, based on a range of factors, including horsemanship, knowledge of polo, strategic acumen, team play and the talent of the horses themselves.
Uniquely, the sport also considers sportsmanship and was the only game in the world to govern this in player ratings until the rise of fair play awards in football.
Three different scoring systems are used, with the English system being a scale from -2 to 10. Every polo player is given a handicap which is measured in goals, which in a handicapped game are totalled up between the four players that make up a team and compared to the other team.
The difference between the two handicaps is then added to the scoreboard. For example, if one team had a total handicap of three goals and another has a handicap of four, then the first team will start the match with a one-goal advantage, to make it fair.
Despite having a score difference, a handicap measures the overall worth of a player to a team, not necessarily how many goals they will themselves score.
Professional players tend to have a handicap over five goals, and less than fifty players in history have ever had the maximum ten goal handicap.
The last British player to have a ten goal handicap was Gerald Barnard Balding Sr., grandfather to BBC Sports broadcaster Clare Balding and considered to be the greatest English polo player to have ever played the sport.