The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-06-24
Sports
POLO PONIES COST
MORE THAN EVER
Average Price of These Little
Creatures Joins the Soar
ing Procession.

New York HeraId:-Not only has the
polo pony improved but the demands
Of the players on their ponies have in
creased. Men require a better, larger
faster animal than ponies We're even
four or five years ago.
Ponies Of this class are not too com
mon; frst-rate horses Of any breed,
from race horses down to shetland
ponies, never are or have been. So
the ponies go up.
I'VE have seen the whole process in
India, says a writer in Bailev's Maya
zine. "When first played there a polo
pony was a country bred, quick, handy
and very easy TO ride. Tournament
play found them out, and they were
discovered to be shiftv and cunning
under pressure, and, above all, unable
to bear the strain of a fierce finish to
close match. They cost from 80 to
800 rupees.
Then came the Arabs, and they too
had their day. They used to come up
to us in trucks from Bombay at an
average of 400 rupees apiece, and if
one in ten became tournament pony
We were lucky. The periods Of play
were shortened and the length Of
matches contracted, but the standard
of tournament play grSw more and more
eXacting, and the Arab had to 90.
The Arab never was a weight car
| rier: he is very apt to cross his LEGS
and come down if hustled, and he has
now been displaced in India by the
| Waller. the New IeaIander and the Eng
ljsh pony, at about $500 rupees apiece
| Now this is exactly in brief the process
| that has gone on in England, except
| that we do not need to import our
| ponies and are able TO breed them foE
modern polo.
The English polo pony has ou~ted
| his rivals, 50 greatly has he improved
he carries weight better. is faster and
yet is a great deal better balanced ant
| handler than he was, and he has prac
tjcally displaced all others. the few
| trSt-cIass Americans and Argentines
tnar survive being rather an evidence
tor than against the supremacy Of the
English pony. How much the Eng 4
pony has improved may be seen from
the fact that whereas at one time il
frst-cla tournaments Arabs Argen
tines and Americans might be seer
| playing on equal terms with EngIist
ponies. now only a very few Of the bes
lpf these herds can hold their own il
tirstciasS polo.
If now we 90 on TO analvze tn
principal sales If ponies that we know
Eof during last year we shall find that
excluding all ponies (and there were
great nIany) that fetched less thai
$50. we are able to trace 1865 Fonie
which sold for an aggregate Of tl91>t
the average price being SIG >. .
these ponies fifty ght brought t
Itheir sellers from loo Ia 500 guinea
averaging fraction over t206, OF tn
80 ponies l07 We're sold Tor from ,
TO 90 guireas, making total Of = ,33:--S
or an average Of SOS los. for each pony
IOf these ponies all but i very icy
were English or Irish the American
IArgentine and Arab ponies not amount
ng to five per cent Of the whole.
: ,'But il may be said that the price
in the first class were raised by til
American purchases last year and ID
he demand for forty or fifty tirer-cla>
ponies for the international ma'chc
II do not think, however. these purchase
made a great deal OF difference or tha
the average price IN any year for II
: best class Of ponies would fall niue
below POO guinness. The prices Of pom,
H.. Z. ,rf