Lucia: She’s An Equine All-Star Spokane Polo Club Hosts Three-Day Tournament

In her sport, Lucia is an elite and she’s got a tattoo on the inside of her upper lip to prove it.

No, this brown-eyed girl with great legs is not a grunge-rocker skateboard queen taking body decoration to new extremes. She’s a horse - a thoroughbred polo pony, to be exact.

On Sunday, Lucia won “Best Played Pony” in her division at the Spokane Polo Club’s three-day polo tournament.

“It’s like the MVP award,” said Grant Hardwick, Lucia’s owner and rider from Kelowna, British Columbia.

The tattoo is evidence of her breeding background, explained Hardwick as he pulled Lucia’s lip back for a visitor’s gander.

Lucia and her equine counterparts are the essence of this game played on 300 yards of turf in seven-minute quarters or “chuckers,” as the insiders call them.

Without horses, polo would be something akin to croquet played with rugby rules.

But it is not. Instead, polo is a vision of horses stretching their bodies over the green grass in a rush of pounding hooves - forces of nature refined for speed and agility.

“Oh, it’s the biggest thrill there is,” said Clay Bleck, who has played polo since 1958. Ask people for someone to talk about polo and they point to Bleck.

On Sunday, Bleck wasn’t playing. He was sitting, cheering for Lori Troyer, a friend in the finals.

He knew Troyer’s horses by sight. In the first chucker it was Secret, a thoroughbred mare. In the second chucker it was Jezebel, the daughter of Secret. Then there was Cinnamon, another thoroughbred mare from which Troyer fell during mid-game. The horse charged riderless off the field and then came back, where Troyer remounted her and continued the game.

“I just wanted a rest,” Troyer said jokingly as she walked toward Cinnamon.

Her fourth horse was Pin Head, a part Arabian gelding, who despite his name has the uncanny ability to open gates, Bleck said.

Most polo ponies are mares, they are generally preferred over geldings - castrated males - because they still have fire in them, Bleck said.

Studs can be used, but their aggressiveness can make them a pain to keep, Bleck said.

The horses will start their polo careers around 3 or 4 years of age. If uninjured and in good health, a pony can play until it is 20, Bleck said.

As a rule of thumb it takes a human four or five years to become a good polo player. A horse takes about a year, Bleck said.

But each player needs four horses. It’s too stressful on the animals to play four quarters in a row, although some owners will play their steeds twice a day, Bleck said.

After their polo career, some of the animals become “pensioners” as Bleck calls them - horses that have earned a soft retirement on a farm.

“Some people want them for leisure riding,” Bleck said. “After their polo days they’ve had all the hell kicked out of them.”

But until those retirement days - or death, they are prized and pampered. While their victorious owners walk away with glittering silver trophies, the horses get a cool shower and a bucket of oats - a rare treat compared to the grass or alfalfa they usually eat.

“They’re damn near pets,” he said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo