A Typical Week in the Virginia Polo Club

Along with polo & riding, there is a sweat-equity component to club membership. This enables members to learn about the horsemanship side of polo, from feeding & mucking to basic veterinary care. Coordinated by the club president, at the beginning of each semester students sign up for their feeding and mucking shifts for that semester. Each morning student members arrive on their chosen days to bring the horses in from pasture. They feed, inspect legs and observe the horses for soundness as they come into their stalls. The horses are then fed and watered again around noon.

Around 3-3:30PM each day, club members arrive for the afternoon to work horses, either chukkers or stick and ball, depending on the day. Upon arrival, members sign up for horses and chukkers. All club members have the ability to come out and ride daily. As each chukker ends horses are untacked, washed and then turned out for the night. At the end of practice the members clean tack, hay and water the barn and clean stalls.

In addition to playing time, the Men's and Women's Varsity teams have two scheduled practices each week which are interspersed between the club chukkers.

Each Saturday morning we offer Polo Boot Camp for U.Va. and Piedmont Virginia Community College students and high schoolers interested in learning the game. Boot Camp is offered both Spring and Fall semester to teach the game to potential club members. Varsity and club players organize the program and help Assistant Coach Elka instruct, teaching the basics of polo and polo style riding to the new players.

To serve the local polo community, Virginia Polo offers a program for high school students, the Virginia Juniors, during the academic year with practices on Wednesdays. The team competes against other interscholastic teams under the guidance of Elka Sterling.

All of this takes tremendous coordination and effort from the Virginia Polo Club members as they each take responsibility for a different parts of the operation.