Richard “Dick” Latham, UVA class of 1963 and Virginia Polo Club alum will be inducted into the Polo Hall of Fame in 2024. Mr. Latham has been involved in polo most his life as a player, a sponsor, and on the administrative side of things working with the USPA, most significantly, this passion for polo was sparked at the Virginia Polo Club. With his introduction to the sport while at UVA, Dick Latham is a Virginia Polo grown player.
Growing up in Texas Dick Latham had ridden all his life and always had horses, but rode in stock saddles. He decided he’d like to go East for college and chose UVA as his destination. September 1959 he arrived on Grounds for the first time and attended an interest meeting for the fairly new Virginia Polo Club (then 6 years old) at Mem Gym, never having seen a polo game. He found the Virginia Polo Club men to be a welcoming group and joined the club then located at Brook Hill Farm on Polo Grounds Road. He began with stick and balling, walking hots, and spending lots of time in the hitting cage working on improving his swing. There was a load of talent in those years, with Will Farish and Claxton Long captaining the team along with Don Grubbs.
In 1961 Dick “Remo” Riemenschneider, Class of ‘59, came back to UVA for law school and renewed his involvement in the Virginia Polo Club. This was a significant event for Dick Latham as Remo became a mentor to him on the polo field and one of the closest friends in his life. There was not much formal coaching at the time in the club, but Remo was an accomplished horseman and a good player and taught the new members a lot. With Remo’s help Dick Latham got better and better and in 1961 he became a starter on the team a position he held until his graduation in 1963.
Thanks to the Virginia Polo Club the polo bug had now bitten Mr. Latham, and in the summer of 1962 while home on summer break he started playing in Dallas. Seeing his passion for the sport his father got him 3 horses, one he would bring back to the University team. After graduating from UVA he kept playing polo in the Southwestern Circuit and pretty soon had a good string of horses. At the time there were only two fields in Dallas and not a lot of players, but there were some really good ones. It was there he met Clarence Stark.
In 1965 Mr. Latham met polo legend Cecil Smith & wife Mary and their son Charles Smith- the Smiths became his second family/polo family. Dick spent a lot of time at the Smith Ranch and played polo with Charles for 10 years as his sponsor. They won a lot of tournaments in those ten years beginning with a 12 goal tournament in 1967. In 1968 Tom Hughes called to ask if he and Charles would come play at Oak Brook Polo Club with him and Billy Linfoot in the 20 Goal, they went and they won. Dick & Charles continued playing in Texas and went to Oak Brook most every summer to play in tournaments after that. Many victories followed, including winning the 1975 Gold Cup with Charles Smith, Jack Oxley, & Little Roy Barry, and again in 1977 with Red Armour, Seth Herndon, & Jake Sieber. In 1972 he won the National Intercircuit Cup with Bill Hudson, Charles Smith, & Seth Herndon.
Of note, in the 1960’s and 1970’s Dick & Charles won the Southwestern Circuit 12 Goal five times, four of those in a row, a feat that had not been accomplished before. The first of those victories, in 1967, was secured with a team featuring himself, Charles Smith, Clarence Starks, and Phil Heatley (a cheap 0) from El Paso. After that, Dick, Charles Smith, Bill Hudson (one helluva polo player, #2) and others won it the four times in a row.
Dick Latham continued to play polo until 1978 when financial realities set in and the expense of playing at the same level became too great, so sold his ponies and gave a few to Charles Smith. During his playing years Dick had some really good horses, many made by the great Cecil Smith. One of the ponies he bought from Cecil for Charles was Sweet Be, who is also being inducted into the Hall of Fame this coming year.
On the organizational side of polo Dick served as delegate for the Dallas Polo Club for 15 years and as Southwestern Circuit Governor for 2 years. He was elected Secretary of the USPA Board of Directors for 2-3 years, went back onto the Board for 4 years and chaired the Umpire Committee, Tournament Committee, and Handicap Committee for several years. With a facility and inclination to write, Dick wrote the tournament summaries for national tournaments that appeared in the Blue Book for a number of years. When the Encylopedia Britannica approached the USPA for an article describing polo they set Dick to the task, he authored the description they published. The USPA also invited him to write a guide for umpires, which was published into a handbook that would fit into a pocket as a reference guide.
For his active involvement and contributions to the sport of polo Dick Latham will be inducted into the Polo Hall of Fame in 2024, a great national honor, the culmination of a life journey that began at the humble Virginia Polo Club in 1959.
