The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-10
MlLBLJRN ESTAR BACKED TO WIN
 BIG POLO TROPHY
Life Of Great Player Has Been Full Of Thrill
 ing Incidents

Milburn, greatest of polo stars, wends his hectic way through strenuous com petition with a charmed life. Many persons have laid claim to such, but very few have had so much actual req son for their belief. For polo is the most dangerous of sports, more liable to snap the vital strand than football. lacrosse, hockey or any other of the so-called dangerous games.
 Horses, with their crushing weight and flying hoofs, add the nth degree of danger to a sport which has as much personal contact as any. There are four players on each side in polo match. The idea is to knock the wooden ball in such manner as to place 1t be- tween your opponents goal posts These objectives are separated by field 300 feet long by half of that in breadth.
 It is quite a stunt to bit the little white pellet sitting atop a charging mount. The mallet seems strangely small when you are looking down from the ponys height of at least i've rect. Add to that the necessity of guiding your mount and trying to cooperate with your teammates and, the thing is real problem.
 Such is the game which Milburn has played more than well for the past % years, for the great international star was hardly more than IA years of age when he started playing in 1895. In that time he has had more chance to be killed than possibly any other person in or out of sport.
 Yet down through the ages there has persisted a tradition that the purring feline maintains a monopoly of the more or less well known nine lives. Those persons who still persist in hang ing their similes to the cat must be shockingly ignorant of the polo world and this Devereux Milburn in particu- lar. To count nine times that the Meadow Brook star has cheated the recording angel would seem almost funny. He has had one or more serious injuries at least every two years that he has played the game. In other worlds he has beaten the cats record by about six.
 Mayhap you have not been one of those enthusiasts who gain their mla- summer tan out on the Salisbury plains where the historic Meadow Brook club nestles amid the zooming flying 7 fields, so list Ye to tale ot tlalllng mallets and crushing hoofs,
 Leader Fifteen Years
 Devereux Milburn for 16 years has been the zenith of polo perfection Tn the United States. 1t was his entrance into the realm of international compe- tition in 1909 which caused new chapter to be written in American polo history, Previous to that time there had been made three attempts by our players to capture the great interna- fional challenge cup from England. This cup was given by the Westehester Polo club of Newport in 1SS6.
 We wanted to bring that cup to America. True it was that; England IS That ancestral home of the mounted spot, but the trophy was placed in com retition by group of American suortsmen. The fact that it was snug ly reposing among the silyery symbols of victory at the Birmingham club Tn England generated a seething fire ot desire.
 American efforts to lift the cup were almost pitiful in those first three matches. The first in this country ID 1886, found the players from the west ern Hemisphere showed under by more than commanding margin. Fol lowed that the two woeful experiences in England in 1900 and 1902, when the Americans were forced again to bow before the superior knowledge ot their ancestors across the Atlantic.
 Then came Milburn. In those days his renown was not flung. to the four winda as it is today. The matches in which the first "Big Four," com posed of Harry Payne Whitney as cap tain, J. Monte Waterbury Jr., Law renee Waterbury and Devereux, with Louis D, Stoddard as substitute, pro vided the ladder which has since led to merited triumph.
 Star From Beginning
 Devereux Milburn was star from the beginning. Fearless, reckless, great horseman, a perfect stroker, an ideal field general and the hardest hitting man in the equine pastime, Mil burn blazoned his way to a widespread reputation.
 Intensity was the feature of Mil there battling with a sporting ferocity. He placed himself and the robins egg blue of Meadowl Brook in an exalted position. So great became his prow- ess that soon 1t seemed as if he could not continue. Injuries. the bane of all T,olo players, began to insinuate them selves into practically every contest.
 An almost continuous string of minor bruises and bone breaks began to bother young Milburn. Broad shoui- dered, tall and well developed, he was q striking figure at 28 years. But it was not until four years later, in 1913, that the whole world waited with abated breath for the reports of lone con test with the grim reaper. Milburn was playing the game with all the grit at his command. Even as he turned back the invading British, so fought "Dev'' against the greatest adversary of all.
 The cause of his travel through the long vale from whence few return was the result of a hectic contest at thu Meadow Brook club at Waterbury. The fracas was a preliminary scrimming in preparation for the English four which had challenged for the trophy that year. All of the American team were engaged in a spirited display of polo. There were playing with Milburn Monty" md Larry Waterbury and Harry Payne Whitney. On the opposing side
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