The Washington times., 1924-09-05
LITTLE GROUND
FORFORECAST
ON POLO
If U. S. Wins 1t Will Still Have
Much to Learn, Says
Writer
By CAROLINE d. APPLETON.

NEW YORK, Sept. 5.-The two
final practice games yesterday have
given rise to very little conjec.
ture. The challenging English
team, made up of Lieutenant Col.
onel Melville, Major Hurndall, Ma.
jor Atkinson and Major Lockett,
settle matters with q ten-to-ten tie
with a twenty-three goal Amer
lear aggregation consisting of
James Cooley. Stephen Sanford
Louis Stoddard and Morgan Bel.
mont. Probably the Englishmen
did not make an especially dis
tinguished showing. On the other
hand, neither did our own best
luminaries on the neighboTing field,
where the Americans held their
last practice observed by the Prince
of Wales and a few hundred peo-
pie pnintimidated by gathering
storm clouds.
Mr.. Hitchcock, to whose twelve
goals was largely due the victory
of the White team over the Blues,
with a total score of q to S,
played with spectacular briiliancy
that may have overshadowed or
hypnotized both his own team and
his opponents. In any case, Mr..
Hitchcock was the game-the whole
game. Mr.. Milburn' was said to
be not at his best but no one
appeared to be particularly per-
turbed about it. At back, Major
Louis Beard, veteran of last years
military victory, played a strong,
steady game for the Blues.
Conventional Practice.
But all four teams, two at Coch-
ran Field and two at Grace, went
through a more or less conventional
practice period in which no one but
Mr.. Hitchcock particularly excelled
and which cannot be held to be any
safe indication of the outcome Of
the big games.
The reports that the Prince of
Wales appeared to be depressed, by
the showing made by his team are
warmly protested by both American
and English polo enthusiasts. His
fast at the polo dinner at Piping
nock when, with fitting simplicity
md a good deal of feeling, he spoke
of polo as being an extremely close
bond between his people and our
own, did not suggest or imply in
the slightest that either he or any
other Englishman anticipates dis.
appointment!
We, however, are quite frank
about anticipating it for them. It
is entirely natural, but perhaps a
little unnecessary, to be so con.
spicuously patriotic as we appear
in proclaiming our invinicibility so
far in advance of the events. It
has been remarked that the Eng.
lish play polo and the Americans
fight it," but even If our own bril-.
liant and well-seasoned team walks
off with the laurels of this occasion,
we shall have to duplicate that
team in coming generations to hold
supremacy over country that has
played polo for a long, long, time.
An Old, Old Game.
America is a vast field for re.
cruiting polo talent. But while the
Chinese had a school for polo ponies
in about $50 A. d. and very con.
siderably later, as Rudyard Kipling,
for instance, explains, the British
army in India and in Egypt did it's
level best to make "a cult ard creed
of the game and cheerfully offered
up blood-sacrifice for It. It was
only in 1875 that James Gordon
Bennett brought the essential equip
ment of mallets and tails to the
United States and essayed to
make the game popular in New
York. Eighteen hundred ard sew
enty-six was a highly circumspeet
year. There are those among US
now who recall that riding hall OH
Thirty.ninth street where congre-
gated those individuals invited by
Mr.. Bennett to examine into the
possibilities of this curious Anglo
Eastern sport.
Gentleman in that day wore shin
ing parted boards. These they
stroked with meditative fingers and
considered Mr.. Benefits account of
this savage sport, which reputedly
hard-mouthed British cavalrymen
mounted upon dainty, waltzing
ponies, whiled away the hot Indian
hours to the tune of hideous pro-
family, the rafting OF broken bones
and CORY haze over all. Won,
however by the elemental attrac.
ton Of the thing, these gentlemen
subsequently made personal expert
lively young draft horses which "a.
vorted upon the tanbark with the
agility of an overfed and honorably
retired army mule. But no matter.
This was the beginnina
Through the years since then polo
has been held to be a rich mans