There’s not much that is

understated about polo.

From the car park to the tents, you will
find some of the world’s elite brands. Cars
by Porsche. Champagne by Mumm.
But don’t imagine that because there
is privilege there is no passion.
This month, Craig Wilson will lead
a New Zealand team into battle in a
polo world championship for the first
time. And no, he won’t be settling
for anything less than their best.

by RO
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 The Pony CLub
It is a busy February Sunday afternoon in the normally quiet village of
Clevedon, just south of Auckland. The weekly farmers’ market is in full
swing at the local showgrounds, Sarah Ulmer is in town for a cycle race
and at Fisher’s Field on the road to Kawakawa Bay, the polo set have
gathered for the New Zealand Open.
Polo is a sport of contrasts. Helicopters and Porsches sit alongside
horse boxes and Hyundais. The players parade in shiny leather boots,
white pants and pristine shirts, while the grooms who look after the
horses look decidedly grubby, dahling.
In the corporate tents, the champagne flows freely and flirting and
air kissing are the order of the day. On the field, it is a much more
serious affair. Teams of four, mounted on the finest New Zealand
thoroughbreds and armed with mallets that are much smaller than
you think, gallop around the field chasing a small white ball that is not
much bigger than the cricket version.
The aim is simple - score more goals than the opposition. The hard
part is doing it well and making it look easy.
john-paul clarkin
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Cody Forsyth and John-Paul Clarkin have come
as close as any New Zealanders to mastering
the game. They are two of the best players this
country has produced. They were on opposite
sides in the final of the New Zealand Open,
with Clarkin’s Willowcroft team edging out
Team Rodd & Gunn led by Forsyth.
Clarkin and Forsyth may be legends of the
game but neither will be at the FIP World
Championships in Mexico when New Zealand
competes for the first time. Forsyth is too
good and too old; Clarkin is just too good.
Forsyth, a young looking 47-year-old from
Clevedon, will coach the New Zealand team
in Mexico. He would love to have Clarkin in
his squad but New Zealand’s highest-ranked
player at eight goals is ineligible for the 14-
goal handicap competition (which means the
total handicaps of the four-man team must
not be greater than 14).
Handicaps are awarded based on a player’s
horsemanship, ball control, understanding of
strategy and general playing ability. The scale
starts at minus two goals for a beginner, rising
to 10 goals, the polo equivalent of perfection.
Clarkin has his sights set on becoming a 10-
goal player.
“John-Paul is already one of the best players
in the world,” says Forsyth. “He has that
X-factor. He started very young and he is
an unbelievable sportsman. You can turn
professional on three or four goals so that
gives you an idea of just how good he is.”
Forsyth was, and still is, a pretty handy polo
player himself. He was also rated an eight-
goal player in his prime and currently plays
off six. One of the pioneers of the sport in
this country, he was one of the first to play
professionally overseas.
“When I started playing in England 25 years
ago, there were one or two New Zealand
professionals playing over there. Now almost
half of the 250 or so registered players in
this country play professionally somewhere
else in the world during the off-season in
New Zealand.”
Polo is a summer game, so the players follow
the sun. That means they play in New Zealand
from December to February; Australia and
the US in March and April; England in May,
June and July; France in August; Spain in
September; and Australia and Argentina in
October and November. Nice work - if you can
get it that is.
“It is not the sort of job you can apply for,”
admits Forsyth. “Professional polo is a game
of invitation. You get invited to play on a team
 The Pony CLub
because the patron (owner or sponsor of a
team) likes you or the way you play or has
heard about your horses.”
Or quite often because your father or your
father’s father played the game. More than
most other sports, polo is a game you are born
into or should that be bred into. It may not
be as elitist in New Zealand as it is in the UK,
where Prince Charles is a noted enthusiast,
but the costs associated with the game means
it is usually the preserve of wealthy farmers
or businessmen.
“I just got hooked on polo. Once
you start it grabs hold of you. It
is like an addictive drug,”
“It costs a lot of money to play professionally,”
says Forsyth. “Each player has at least 15 or
16 horses. But it is a lucrative sport if you are
good at it. Like any professional sport, the
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people at the top make a lot of money and it
tapers off after that. Some of the top players
in the world would make a couple of million
[dollars] a year.”
Clarkin isn’t prepared to reveal what he
earns from the sport but he is happy to give
some insight into just how costly it is to play.
“I have 20 horses in England, six in Argentina
and 50 here and I am small-time compared to
some operators. But the better you get as a
player, the more you have to spend on horses
to keep at the same level,” he says.
New Zealand horses are highly sought-after
around the world and like many professional
polo players, Clarkin also breeds, trains and sells
polo ponies. So what makes a good horse?
“Speed, agility, a big heart and a good
temperament,” according to Dave Miller.
Miller is an exception to the general rule that
you have to be born into the sport. The son of
Hawke’s Bay schoolteachers, Miller breeds and
trains polo ponies and is in the New Zealand
squad for the Mexico World Championships.
He is also one of the more high-profile
members of the team thanks to a brief fling last
year with Auckland socialite Nicky Watson.
“We were riding buddies,” says Miller with
just a hint of a grin before he admits, “I did
see her for a bit.”
Miller’s father was into motorbikes. His son
wanted to work with horses from an early age
and his uncle introduced him to polo when he
was 16.
Miller was also a promising openside flanker
for Waikato and Warren Gatland brokered
a deal for him with a top Irish club but he
turned his back on rugby for polo. It was an
easy decision.
“I just got hooked on polo. Once you start it
grabs hold of you. It is like an addictive drug,”
explains Miller. “I can play polo until I am
50 but I could have been
a broken rugby player by
the age of 23. I love horses.
Plus, you get to play with
your mates and you get the
chance to travel and play
around the world.”
Miller plays in the UK
during the New Zealand
winter and he spends six
months of the year at home
breeding and training polo
ponies to sell overseas.
He is quick to dismiss
the notion that it is an
elitist sport.
“I came from nowhere and I’ve been accepted
by everybody. You do see some snobbery
overseas but not in New Zealand. Here it is
a bit more relaxed. It is a great lifestyle. I’ve
had 10 years of summers. I don’t know what
winter is like.”
The 26-year-old plays off a three handicap
and his ambition is to go as far as he can in
the sport. Another former Waikato rugby
player Craig Wilson wouldn’t be a bad role
model for Miller.
Wilson will captain the New Zealand team
in Mexico.
“It is a huge honour. I am absolutely
rapt,” says Wilson. “I am not going to say
we are going to win or lose in Mexico but
the best thing we have going for us is that
we are all Kiwis. We have a good bunch of
guys going and if we can play with belief
The Pony CLub
we will be there at the business end of
the tournament.”
Wilson compares the world championships
to the A1 Grand Prix where all the drivers
are in the same car. Normally in polo, the
team with the best horses wins;. If you can’t
get to the ball, you can’t hit it. In Mexico, the
teams will draw lots for horses at the start of
the tournament.
“It means it will come down to the way
we play the game and the tactics we use.
Horsemanship will be one of the key factors,”
explains Wilson. “If you have the ability to get
on a horse that isn’t so good and make it into
a better horse and keep improving it during
the week then you will have a better chance
of doing well.”
Like most polo players Wilson grew up
around horses. He was raised on a sheep and
beef farm in Te Akau, west of Ngaruawahia
and north of Raglan Harbour.
With the stock spread over 1300 acres and
no motorbike on the farm, Craig spent a lot
of time in the saddle. The hours spent on the
farm horses proved invaluable when he got
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 The Pony CLub

his first taste of polo at the age of 14 at the

local Waimai Polo Club.
“Horsemanship is very important in the
game. You are on a horse going 100 miles an
hour - well maybe not 100 miles an hour but it
feels like it - you are bumping into people and
you are trying to hit a ball.
“You need great hand-eye co-ordination. It is
not a very big ball, and you are not hitting it
with a big mallet. The ball is bouncing around
and you are going flat out on a horse. It is
rugged and aggressive and there is just no
other game like it.”
Wilson was torn between rugby and polo
for a few years. When he was 21, he played
a season of NPC rugby for Waikato, filling
in at half-back for the injured Rhys Duggan.
When Duggan returned from injury the
following season Wilson found himself
twiddling his thumbs on the bench. It wasn’t
for him. Neither was the option of playing for
another union.
“I wasn’t inclined to leave
the Waikato. I could have
maybe gone to Counties or
Hawke’s Bay but I had dreams
of playing for Waikato all my
life and I didn’t want to settle
for second best,” he says.
Wilson packed his bags
and played polo for a year
in Kenya and it has been his
job for the past eight or nine
years. Now 34, he lives on
Australia’s Gold Coast, plays
off a six-goal handicap and
will play in England for the
first time later this year.
Clarkin has been playing
in England since he was 18.
As well as being one of the
best players in the game, he
is also one half of the most
glamorous polo couples
in the world, the Posh and
Becks of polo if you will.
Clarkin married Nina
Vestey, the English heiress,
in September 2006. The
couple met as polo-playing
teenagers, introduced to each other by
their polo-playing fathers, Paul Clarkin and
Mark Vestey.
Tragically, Nina’s father Mark was confined
to a wheelchair after a hunting accident in
1984 and 20 years later in July, 2004, Paul
Clarkin was killed during a polo match in
England while John-Paul was watching from
the sideline.
“It was one of those things. Every horseperson
falls off a horse maybe a 100 times in their life
and this was just one of those times,” explains
Clarkin. “There was a slight collision and his
horse fell. Dad was knocked unconscious and
he just never woke up.”
While his father’s death understandably
forced John-Paul to consider his future in
polo, he couldn’t walk away from a sport he
says is in his blood.
“I know Dad would still be playing now if he
had got up that day. He was 54 and he was still
on four goals and very competitive.”
While Clarkin won’t be playing in Mexico he
will be supporting his wife. Vestey is a top
polo player in her own right.
She will travel as a reserve for the United
Kingdom side. The other seven teams in
the tournament are Brazil, Canada, Chile,
Mexico, South Africa, Spain and of course
New Zealand.
New Zealand beat Australia last February to
qualify for the world championships for the
first time. Brazil and Argentina have won the
world title three times with the US the only
other winners of the competition. That is
a fair reflection of the strength in the world
game with New Zealand ranked below the top
three alongside countries such as England
and Australia.
Forsyth expects Brazil to be strong favourites
but he is confident New Zealand can give a
really good account of itself.
“It is the first time we have played in this
event so we have a lot to learn.
“But we have a lot of young guys who can
ride well,” says Forsyth. “We might be novices
in the competition but it has created a real
buzz and it has given our younger players
something to strive for.” Craig wilson

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