Recently I was chatting with friends about polo, and as an exaggeration, I said “to get to the top in polo, you don’t necessarily need to play well, but you must have a snappy decal for your trucks and equipment.” Of course, I was being facetious. The game we love is difficult, takes long years, facts we all know. But one can’t help noticing and being impressed by trucks and service vehicles with Grant Manor Farm, or Gehache, or GreenTree logos, which add to the overall allure.

In that spirit, I dug out an old drawing to see about turning it into a decal. Here it is:

Just when I was starting polo for the second time in the early 90’s (we had Palmetto Polo in Hereford, TX in the 50s, my dad having written “Polo On The Plains” for the Cattleman Magazine in September, 1954), I drove up to Montecito for an interview with polo legend Bob Skene. To produce the video, “A Visit With Bob Skene,” I used this drawing to frame the credits. The player would swoop down on goal, rip a great shot, the credits appearing on the ball as it zoomed through the goal.

Following the jokey conversation above, I sent the image off to Vista Print and they came back with this design for the decal, and here it is.

With this added bonus. The design team at Vista didn’t want to work with my drawing, it being too difficult to add definition to the horse, so they produced an image of a high goal player, using the original design, for this whopping decal.

In the discussions with Vista, it came up that the drawing is essentially a lesson, and a vitally important one for anyone wishing to hit good shots. If you look carefully at the player’s wrist, it curls in at the last moment. He’s reducing the radius, putting all that oomph on the ball which is the hallmark of the good player, and of good play.

So here’s an unexpected benefit to the decal. Every time I get in my truck I study the drawing on the decal and import its idea into my swing, getting a great, recurring lesson. You can have one too. Send $50 along with your mailing address to the Nickawampus Polo Club, P.O. Box 311,Melfa, VA 23410, to get your decal and a frequent reminder of this essence of good play. You’ll not only arrive in polo, you’ll have a game when you get there.