Senior Schools' Arena Polo Championships
13 May 2018
On Sunday 22 April, seven pupils travelled to Longdole Polo Club in Gloucestershire to represent Stowe at the rescheduled Senior Schools’ Arena Polo Championships. The arena championships were due to have been played in March at Rugby Polo Club, but were cancelled due to the snow. Normally in the Summer Term we would expect to be playing four aside on grass. We were exceptionally lucky that Longdole were able to accommodate us in their arena. The open section was played as an American tournament, the Stowe A team consisting of Billy HawkinsByass (Lower Sixth, Cobham), Jamie Baillie (Lower Sixth, Cobham) and Ivan de Poligny had a tough first game against Millfield, their second game against a combined Oxford Polo team saw them run out the victors putting them into the play offs for third or fourth place where they came upon Radley. It was a hard fought and exciting game to watch. With 25 seconds left of the game the score was 2-2, then a penalty was awarded against Stowe to Radley. Radley scored a goal which saw them go to third place and Stowe to fourth. The Stowe B team were entered in to the Intermediate and consisted of Jack Nesbitt (Fifth Form, Chatham), Nathan Dana (Lower Sixth, Temple) and Oliver Pritchard (Lower Sixth, Temple) and they came fourth after some very tough games. Rosie Grayson (Third Form, Nugent) represented Stowe in a combined team and came third.
Rosie Grayson (Third Form, Nugent)
Following on from this, on Sunday 29 April Stowe took two teams in part two of the arena SUPA Nationals. The first all-girls team Natasha Woods (Upper Sixth, Queen’s) (Captain), Coco Brooks (Lower Sixth, Lyttelton) and Bella White (Lower Sixth, Nugent) fought incredibly hard in all of their 4 chukkas to beat Millfield and win their division! A fantastic achievement. The C team boys Julian Ma (Lower Sixth, Bruce) (Captain), Tom White (Lower Sixth, Chatham) and Rafi Mahmood (Third Form, Walpole) played with utter determination and came forth in their division. Exciting times for Stowe polo and looking forward to the grass season and some much needed sunshine!
Fiona Corthine, Head of Polo