Polo position

For beginners, what will a lesson or clinic entail and cost?

The great thing is these days you don't need a string of polo ponies and an introduction from an elite member club to get started. If you can afford to rent a horse for an hour twice a month, or preferably once a week, you can not only learn to play polo, but also to ride and be involved in a wonderfully engaging and supportive community. We can help with directing you to polo clubs and clinics that train you. The average cost is HK$800 to HK$1,200 per hour. If you compare that to golf or sailing, it's very achievable. Andy Leung – a member of our polo team – has started a beginners' polo team with periodic training camps in Tianjin, and is recruiting new novice players and riders regularly from the local community. We also have the Hong Kong Polo Academy, based in Beijing, which can provide polo clinics, group lessons and introduction weekends.

Your aim is to make polo accessible for all. For someone with a modicum of sporting ability who has never played polo or ridden horses before, but has interest, how long do you imagine it takes them to learn?

It's fair to say that I had a modicum of sporting ability – I liked badminton, tennis, cycling, skiing and scuba-diving, but it's also fair to say I wasn't particularly good at any of those disciplines. And that's my point; you don't have to be good at a particular sport to enjoy it. We're not all destined to be Olympic athletes, but polo and horse riding will certainly get you in good shape. I didn't start taking riding and polo lessons until I was 40 and I played my first tournament before I was 41. Six months to a year is a good estimate if you train once or twice a week.

What's the standard size of a polo pitch?

A full-size competition polo field is around 140 by 300 metres, but we are planning for arena polo, which is about the size of a football pitch – around 100 by 50 metres.