Watch the 2013 United States Polo Association Open Featuring Colorado’s Team – Valiente, Inside this Post
Published on Apr 27, 2013 US Polo Open 2013 As featured on YouTube from the USPA website.
Jalapeno Jelly Recipe from the Polo Player’s Foxhunting Braai
Marge Stevens and Mim Willyard started making jalapeno jelly some 16 years ago to support the local Christmas bazaar. What started out small soon grew big and the largest demand is for the hotter jalapeno variety! Lise Stevens introduced the Arapahoe Hunt to her mother's famed jelly during hunt breakfasts. The recipe was recently featured in Covertside Magazine, together with the equally famous annual Polo Player's Foxhunting Braai. This jalapeno jelly recipe will fill 8 of the 8 ounce canning jars (be sure to sterilize them in the dishwasher before using), which after they cool can be kept in a cool dark place until you need one for your next Braai or lamb dish. Use a large stock pot for cooking the jelly ingredients, as the sugar will foam up with the boiling, so it is also helpful to keep a hair dryer on hand, using it to blow down the foam so it doesn't boil over. It's a very simple recipe which takes only about 20 minutes to prepare. Click this link for the full recipe and to read the entire article in The Polo Players Foxhunting Braai in Covertside
Yerba Mate
Our new friends from Argentina are going home, as summer polo season is about over here in the West and they left with us a special gift this year, a matero (a bag for holding a the mate gourd, the yerba mate and a thermos). The also left a leather covered mate gourd, which we added to our small collection, but this mate is the one we reach for every morning now, as it is the perfect size and it is of the best quality. Yerba mate is consumed all over South America in place of tea or coffee, or in addition to it. It has an earthy taste, like green tea, though sometimes slightly more bitter taste due to the high tannin content of the leaves, which are a member of the holly family. We were introduced to it at polo from the Argentines, and I love it. Oprah's doctor promotes it as the only healthy caffinated beverage and studies seem to indicate it significantly reduces cholesterol, especially when brewed with hot water, but not boiling, as is the traditional way. Yerba mate con polo, with a higher amount of sticks and stems, will typically have more of a woodsy taste than pure leaf mate. Some add sugar and milk, particularly for children. You add hot water (never boiling) to the yerba mate, which is traditionally drunk from a gourd with a bombilla straw, and as the tea and be steeped multiple times, it is perfect for sharing with friends. Each cup is consumed and then the gourd is passed back to the maker of the tea for a refill of hot water and then it is passed on to the next drinker, when
The Polo Player’s Annual Foxhunting Braai
While polo is played in South Africa, they have no mounted foxhunting there, so why we have a South African braai after foxhunting, put on by the polo players in the hunt, is a bit hard to explain. In any event, it's become the best "hunt breakfast"of the year, and since none of our hunt "breakfasts" are served before lunch time, this is also hard to explain why we call them such. This description adapted from Wikipedia: A braai is imilar to a potluck party, this is a social event which is casual and laid-back, where family and friends converge on a picnic spot or someone's home (normally the garden or verandah) with their own meat, salad, or side dish in hand. Meats are the star of the South African braai. They typically include boerewors, sosaties, kebabs, marinated chicken, pork and lamb chops, steaks, sausages of different flavors and thickness, and possibly even a rack or two of spareribs. Fish and rock lobster commonly called "crayfish" or kreef in Afrikaans, are also popular in coastal areas to add to the braai. The other main part of the meal in some regions of the country is pap (/ˈpɑːp/, meaning porridge), actually a thickened porridge, or the krummelpap ("crumb porridge"), traditionally eaten with the meat. Made from finely ground corn/maize (similar to polenta), it is a staple of local African communities and may be eaten with a tomato and onion sauce, monkeygland sauce or the more spicy chakalaka (a/k/a trainsmash) at a braai. The pap is cooked in a potjie pot, which is a cast iron kettle, typically with three legs made to sit on or near the fire side. Biltong is also popular, which is cured
60 Minutes Special on “Polo – The Sport of Kings”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57410915/the-sport-of-kings-polo/
Polo with Brittany Spears’s Mariano Gutierrez
Mariano Gutierrez made the final cut for the newest Britney Spears music video“Radar” as her heart-throb and was just in town at R&L Farms Polo Club to try a few polo ponies this past month at our club during a few practice with us. The video also features polo at Pat Nesbitt’s Bella Vista Polo Club in Santa Barbara. Jason Crowder, Pat Nesbitt, Mariano Fassetta and a few others professional players. Gutierrez is a professional and is rated as a 5-goal player. The official set of rules and rules interpretations are reviewed and published each year by the United States Polo Association, the national governing body of the sport of polo in the United States.1
The Ultimate Field Picnic
I was sent a copy of this article on the ultimate picnic party wagon, which is a proper English wooden trailer converted for tailgating for polo matches. Polo Magazine- Party Wagon Article. I then discovered Christy's auction of Patricia Kluge's estate in Virginia, and found that after the Kluge divorce, John Kluge remarried and built another house nearby. This incredible picnic hamper is the piece de resistance of the auction. click article from the New York Times which appeared in December 2005. Apparently in the 1980's by the Kluges commissioned the London firm of Asprey, jewellers and silversmith to the British Royal Family, to fashion this picnic hamper containing a full service for sixteen. The wicker trailer holds some 15 wicker cases, each fitted with brass handles and leather straps, with battery-powered hot and cold boxes and a water pump, cases for Bernardaud Limoges china, Baccarat crystal, Asprey silver cutlery, a staghorn bar service, two folding mahogany tables and 16 chairs, complete with the "K" monogram. The set was estimated at $20,000 to $30,000 and sold for some $144,000. Although wicker carryalls have been used since the 1700s, the picnic basket was born in 1901, when British luxury-goods retailers like Asprey started stocking hampers filled with tableware for motorists to enjoy on country drives. See more at http://driven.urbandaddy.com/2011/08/17/meals-on-wheels/ and http://www.finesse-fine-art.com/Picnic/PicnicArticle.htm.
The World of Polo (book review, 1/5 *)
The World of Polo, Past & Present by J.N.P. Watson, Salem House Publishers, 1992 This book is the pictorial history of Polo, but it ends in 1992, so few of the current players are featured. Most of the photographs are dated and it's really more of "who's who" of has-beens in polo. Not that this is bad idea, it's just it reads more like the society page than it does a real history of places, players, or ponies.